How Fox Was Outfoxed (by CNN, MSNBC)

[quaoar]

http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971033.htm

In December, MSNBC and CNN routed Fox News. Of course, MSNBC and CNN had spent recent months fiercely tussling for the top slot, but in December MSNBC nosed ahead to finish first. The Fox News Channel limped to a distant third-place finish, its audience roughly one-third the size of its competitors'. Advertisement

Did we say we were talking about TV ratings? We are not. All these data reflect U.S. traffic at the channels' Web sites, as tallied by Nielsen//NetRating. They also reflect a complete inversion of how the cable networks perform on their home medium. (MSNBC's daily TV audience sometimes fits comfortably inside two large college football stadiums.) Could this signify that Fox News' style is less translatable to the unbridled Web than that of its straighter competitors?

The well-known rivalry between Fox News and CNN invites all manner of metaphors: red state vs. blue state, hot medium vs. cool medium, partisan tabloid vs. sober-minded broadsheet. News Corp.'s (NWS ) Fox News was launched in 1996 with a sharply conceived programming product that seemed specifically designed to tie its opponent in knots. For Time Warner's (TWX ) CNN to respond in kind would mean forsaking its serious-news DNA. But ignoring the challenger and focusing on its established bona fides left a market opening that Fox could fly a 747 through. Which it has. In early 2002, Fox overtook CNN as the cable-news ratings king, and it has not relinquished that position. (Fox's corporate sibling, The New York Post, employs a similar strategy against the Daily News, though thus far not to the same effect.) In January, the audience for Fox News' best-watched show, The O'Reilly Factor, was more than twice that of CNN's best-watched Larry King Live.

IN A PREVIOUS MEDIA ERA this would be the narrative's end, but we're not in that era. The day when the Web overtakes traditional media -- when a medium's online fare generates more revenue than its original format -- is years off, but big players may be glimpsing its outline in the distance. This, along with the pasting CNN continues to take from partisans on the left and right, is probably why its executives were practically giddy when told about this column. It's true that CNN.com's traffic slipped below that of MSNBC.com for several months last year, but another stat bolsters CNN's online strength. People spend more time, on average, at CNN.com than at either FoxNews.com or MSNBC.com. (Time spent on a Web site, unfortunately called "stickiness," is another key data point that media buyers weigh when making advertising decisions.)

[trotsky]

1. Fox vs. CNN is not red vs. blue.

It's scarlet versus crimson.

[0007]

2. Looky at who's pimping for these sick whores? What a snout

full of propaganda. Anyone of these whores could blow the other two right out of the water with the truth and saying "NO" to the White House who control these freaks.

Give thirty minutes a day to the following people and watch the rating.

Phil Donahue
Howard Zinn
Michael Moore
Ron Paul
Gore Vidal
Norm Cromsky
Bill Moyers
Molly Ivings
Howard Dean
Scott Ritter
William Pitt
Arianna Huffinton
Jim McDermott
Amy Goodman
sean Penn
Jon Stewart

I know, I better start ducking....

[gordianot]

3. I have turned off Corporate media.

Like Pavlov's dog whenever I do happen to flip through channels I see Pat Buchanan's face I automatically turn off the television. By random chance this is not an infrequent occurrence. Just one news show with any of the people listed would give that media source a huge boost. Guess that is why I watch Comedy Central for Jon Stewart's irony and Colbert's portrayal of self indulgent media narcissism, closest thing to real news or insight by Corporate Media.

[roseBudd]

4. That's because Fox's viwers can't read n/t

[depakid]

5. Ratings....

a useless measure.