Fox News ratings crashing and burning

[bmw]

Thursday April 20 vs Thursday April 27

-17% - Fox and Friends - 1.473 million vs 1.221
-07% - Neil Cavuto - 1.189 vs 1.107
-14% - The Five 2.810 vs 2.425
-16% - Special Report 2.148 vs 1.804
-26% - Jesse Watters 2.193 vs 1.632
-51% - Tucker Carlson (vs Kilmeade) 2.992 vs 1.463
-27% - Hannity 2.584 vs 1.890
-29% - Ingarham 2.092 vs 1.487
-13% - Guttfeld 1.774 vs 1.543

Outside of Guttfeld (which probably has a more diverse audience than regular programming), It looks like upwards of 500,000 people who were regular viewers of Fox News primetime have quit watching primetime altogether. And even daytime numbers for most shows are down double digits.

Starting to look like this knee-jerk decision to fire Tucker is going to do far more damage to Fox News than did Tucker himself. At a minimum, Murdock should have had a permanent replacement ready to go on Monday.

[Bryce]

Be interesting to see if Newsmax and ONN have gotten a bump.

[bmw]

Be interesting to see if Newsmax and ONN have gotten a bump.

+152% Rob Scmitt (7pm) 177k vs 446k
+217% Eric Bolling (8pm) 144k vs 456k
+206% Prime News (9pm) 98k vs 300k
+142% Greg Kelly (10pm) 151k vs 366k

So it would appear that roughly HALF of the people who tuned out Fox News went directly to NewsMax.

[Rate This]

Be interesting to see if Newsmax and ONN have gotten a bump.

+152% Rob Scmitt (7pm) 177k vs 446k
+217% Eric Bolling (8pm) 144k vs 456k
+206% Prime News (9pm) 98k vs 300k
+142% Greg Kelly (10pm) 151k vs 366k

So it would appear that roughly HALF of the people who tuned out Fox News went directly to NewsMax.

So farther down the rabbit hole… wonderful. Most of them are diehard Trump fans and conspiracy sympathizers I suspect. Maybe it’s hopeless and moot anyways.

Tucker needed to go on principle. Nobody is gonna let him badmouth executives openly in the building and let him stay. He did a lot to cost them three quarters of a billion dollars and was effectively out of control… it’ll take the lost viewers a while to match that much in ads so for FOX it’s probably a win. OANN and Newsmax have financial difficulties reportedly… maybe this is a shot in the arm… maybe it’s a temporary bump and the inferior programming won’t hold an audience.

As an aside… who knew conservatives of all groups were the kings of cancel culture and boycotts?

[Ben Zonia]

Very poor business decision.

It turned out that despite suppression of all political opposition until Elon Musk bought Twitter, and Representative McCarthy released the suppressed and hidden exculpatory J6 tapes, and they admitted that the Hunter laptop was real and not Russian disinformation, those and others weren't conspiracy theories, but the truth.

Too bad that the only late night program not still possessed by Trump Derangement Syndrome, Greg Gutfeld, and his sidekick, Michigan's own Kat Timpf, will also suffer because of this poor business decision.

People who want to live in a totalitarian state should move to China, North Korea, or Cuba instead of making the US totalitarian. Oh, that's right, they won't let you in those countries, they have CLOSED BORDERS.

[MWmetalhead]

-51% - Tucker Carlson (vs Kilmeade) 2.992 vs 1.463

Given the fact Carlson's show was the most viewed cable news program in prime time by a wide margin, a 51% decrease actually isn't horrible. That 1.463 million number beats Newsmax by a more than 3:1 margin.

I'd be curious to know how that 1.463 million number compares to MSNBC and CNN in the 8PM timeslot.

He did a lot to cost them three quarters of a billion dollars and was effectively out of control… it’ll take the lost viewers a while to match that much in ads so for FOX it’s probably a win.

I agree . There will likely be more large payouts to come to companies whose reputation was openly and repeatedly defamed on FOX's airwaves.

People who want to live in a totalitarian state should move to China, North Korea, or Cuba instead of making the US totalitarian. Oh, that's right, they won't let you in those countries, they have CLOSED BORDERS.

Carlson nor anyone else has a right to occupy airtime on a privately owned media outlet. However, he can start a podcast and spew his opinions all he wants.

As for his ouster being a bad business move, the Fox News brand is strong, for better or worse, and is stronger than any single personality. They survived Bill O'Reilly's exit with little difficulty. Ditto Glenn Beck (whose show was much better than the unwatchable "Five"). The same will probably be true this time. The greater risk to the company, at least in the short-term, is financial impact arising from legal risk.

[Mega Hertz]

I'm proud to admit that not one of those stations has had my eyeballs or ears in almost a decade. It's been nothing but a further lesson that "it's okay so long as MY guy does it". There is just WAY too much opinion anymore and we aren't getting the toothpaste back in the tube. The 24 hour news cycle on God knows how many channels, social media, I know what Donald Trump is and I know what Joe Biden is. I know what the Republicans are and I know what the Democrats are. I don't need to be told how to feel about it. These channels are destroying us. It's almost depressing.

[bmw]

-51% - Tucker Carlson (vs Kilmeade) 2.992 vs 1.463

Given the fact Carlson's show was the most viewed cable news program in prime time by a wide margin, a 51% decrease actually isn't horrible.

To the extent Kilmeade (probably) isn't a permanent replacement, I might be inclined to agree if Tucker's time slot were the only one to suffer, but FNC is taking it on the chin across the board, especially in their 7pm to 10pm time slot range, AND, a sizable chunk of those viewers are going elsewhere as opposed to just not watching temporarily. They may somewhat recover if they make a good decision on an 8pm replacement, but given how far Hannity's, Laura's, and Jesse's ratings fell, it would appear that they were all direct beneficiaries of Tucker being on at 8 and that none of them are worthy replacements. And I have nothing against Kilmeade, but he really is better suited to morning programming. Bottom line, this is going to be far more damaging to the network than when they canned Bill or Beck.

That 1.463 million number beats Newsmax by a more than 3:1 margin.

Yeah, and that's down from a 21:1 margin. To go from having a 4.5% audience share (4.5% of all viewers who watched either Tucker or Bolling) to a 23.8% audience share in literally one week is an ENORMOUS gain of literally more than a 500% gain in market share (again, just looking at the Tucker+Bolling audience). Now whether Bolling can keep those numbers up remains to be seen, but that just seems to me like a major potential problem for FNC.

I'd be curious to know how that 1.463 million number compares to MSNBC and CNN in the 8PM timeslot.

8pm April 20:
FNC - 2.992 million (Tucker Carlson)
MSNBC - 1.372 million (Chris Hayes)
Newsmax - 0.144 million (Eric Bolling)
NewsNation - 0.155 million (Chris Cuomo) (and LOL I didn't even know he was back on TV)

8pm April 27:
-051% - FNC - 1.463 million (Fox News Tonight)
+005% - MSNBC - 1.435 million (Chris Hayes)
+217% - Newsmax - 0.456 million (Eric Bolling)
+017% - NewsNation - 0.181 million (Chris Cuomo)

https://www.mediaite.com/daily-ratings/ ... ant-third/
https://www.mediaite.com/daily-ratings/ ... -averages/

[bmw]

Tucker needed to go on principle. Nobody is gonna let him badmouth executives openly in the building and let him stay.

It is difficult to comment on this not knowing exactly what he said, but if he was "badmouthing" the higher-ups, I do believe that at a minimum Tucker should have been called into an internal meeting and confronted (which it appears did not happen) to see if their differences could be ironed out. And the thing is, that badmouthing was, at least in the hands of Fox News attorneys, for at least several months, so I have to assume the higher-ups had to know about it for a while as well. There should have been a permanent replacement show ready to go on Monday, if not Tuesday and allowing Tucker one final show on Monday, or maybe at least the opening monologue for Monday's show, to give a farewell and give his side of the story (risky move, I know, but ratings would certainly have been sky-high if such a move were advertised in advance).

[Ben Zonia]

Carlson nor anyone else has a right to occupy airtime on a privately owned media outlet. However, he can start a podcast and spew his opinions all he wants.

The vast majority of what he has said are not just opinions, but fact, at least in a historically previously reasonable and fair court of law. We saw what we saw, from the 2020 vote counting Center in Detroit, to the exculpatory recently released J6 videos, to the recent admissions that the Hunter laptop was real and not Russian disinformation, and similar things.

[FakeAndyStuart]

Very poor business decision.

Kinda like those Dominion lies? None of us really know why Carlson was sacked, but clearly must have been something severe and deep. And it's never a bad business decision to get rid of a cancer in the workplace.. and that is certainly the way it reads.

[Taco]

I guess if one digs lies and conspiracies then Newsmax and OAN are for them.

[Motown322]

Nobody wants news or information. They want to sit slack-jawed in front of the TV and listen to someone that tells them what they want to hear.

[Matt]

Nobody wants news or information. They want to sit slack-jawed in front of the TV and listen to someone that tells them what they want to hear.

And empanada only wants to drink awful 40s and bitch about politics.

[Taco]

I don't like FOX News, they were OK pre-Glenn Beck. But I think they did the right thing cutting ties with that bozo Carlson.