By losing 9% of their audience in 2011, Fox News’ prime time lineup now averages fewer viewers than Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show.
According to TVNewser, Fox News averaged 1.868 million total viewers in prime time compared to 2.3 million for The Daily Show.
The audience erosion continued over at Fox News as the network lost 8% of its total viewers and 14% of their viewers in the 25-54 demo. The total number of daytime Fox News viewers slipped to 1.073 million.
“Red Eye” was the only Fox News show to post ratings gains in 2011. Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and On The Record With Greta Van Susteren all lost viewers. In the morning, Fox and Friends remained flat. Fox News still showed its dominance by having the top 13 rated cable news programs, but a certain program hosted by a comedian that Fox News loves to hate on Comedy Central blew past most of the Fox News shows in the ratings.
According to Comedy Central, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart averaged 2.3 million viewers per episode in 2011. Unlike Fox News, “The Daily Show” was up in total viewers (+7%) and all key demos: adults 18-49 (+6%); men 18-34 (+2%); men 18-24 (+4%).” The Daily Show was also the top cable late night talk show in terms of total viewers, and was generally dominant. While Fox News was losing 14% in the demo in 2011, Jon Stewart was gaining 6%.
Jon Stewart has become Fox News’ #1 media nemesis. To put Stewart’s ratings into a head to head context, The O’Reilly Factor tends to hover around the 3 million viewers range. Hannity is at around 2+ million, and On The Record with Greta Van Susteren varies between 1.1 million and 1.5 million as an average. This means that The Daily Show is more popular than both Hannity and On The Record, and trails O’Reilly by about 700,000 viewers.
Every night Stewart is teaching Americans how to not watch Fox News. The Daily Show host has become the media critic with the biggest platform and loudest voice in our country, and most often that voice is targeting Fox News for their brand of “journalism.”
If the younger viewers continuing going to Jon Stewart (And of course Stephen Colbert) for their news, and avoiding Fox News like the plague, the future of our country will be very bright indeed.
You may be tired of hearing me say this, but I am incredibly proud of this upcoming generation of voters.
P.S. By the way is anybody else suffering severe withdrawal symptoms with the Daily Show on hiatus fright now? I am having a miserable time falling asleep at night without my dose of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, before I slip into my railroad train jammies and call it a night. I have been using "Two and Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory" reruns as a placebo, but it's just not the same.
HA ! I've been looking for a 12 Step program to help with my Stewart/Colbert withdrawal.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving the Big Bang Theory. I had never followed the show so it's all new to me.
I believe the next generation is wiser than we think. As seen this summer/fall with the Occupy movement.
There is hope!!!
Love me some Stewart and Colbert! They are helping take down Faux News (bye bye Sarah). So glad Americans are paying attention to these guys. They may say they are fake news but their points on the issues are dead on!
ReplyDeletefaux' base of viewers is either passing away or getting smarter. Or both.
ReplyDeleteThere was a survey recently which showed the divide between liberals and conservatives TV viewing habits. The top two programs watched by liberals were The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, followed by 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, one more. The top five programs watched by conservatives were five lame reality shows that involved trucking, hoarding, beauty pageants, losing weight or catching fish. Dumb and dumber.
ReplyDeleteThe other survey that I liked was the one that showed that people who watched no TV at all knew more about current news that people who watched Fox. Conclusion: Watching Fox or one of those fake reality shows will make you dumb. Or maybe, dumb people pick viewing that doesn't require to to use their brain.
Somewhere Palin is throwing a fit.
ReplyDeleteShe will have to do something to get attention very soon. Robert Reich predicts Sarah's nightmare.
According to the latest Gallup poll, the most admired man in the U.S. is President Barack Obama and the most admired woman is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This marks the fourth consecutive year for Mr. Obama while Ms. Clinton has been the most admired woman in each of the last 10 years. Quite an accomplishment.
While the Gallup poll certainly confirms the enduring popularity of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, Robert Reich, the former Clinton labor secretary is making a prediction: Get ready for Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden to swap places in 2012.
Read the rest
http://fromtheleft.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/robert-reich-get-ready-for-an-obama-clinton-presidential-ticket/
Yep, we miss both the Daily Show and the Colbert Show. We, too, watch The Big Bang Theory - so far, the reruns never seem stale. Always something new. Watch how the apartment changes - little jokes seem to run in the background furnishings.
ReplyDeleteThough we used to love Jon Steward, now we take him a little less passionately, preferring Stephen Colbert. Jon often seems placating to the GOP - as if he is trying too hard to appear, ironically, "fair and balanced."
We are thrilled Comedy Central is surpassing Faux News. I just hope Jon doesn't get softened by his success. It's seemed a bit that way already. Colbert has more bite and is more socially active (charitable causes and such).
After reading your post on how young people are leaving the evangelical movement and now this post on the younger demographic leaving Faux News, we, too, are encouraged. (mind you, we are aging Flower Childen - both in our early sixties so this means a lot to see a new generation becoming more tolerant).
How do you access the Daily Show in Anchorage, Alaska? Cable? Which channel?
ReplyDeleteOT- Re-run of Dr. Drew and Bristol on HLN..
ReplyDeleteGryphen'
ReplyDeletePlease feel free not to publish this post. Just want you to know that I follow your blog even when I don't take time to comment. Nothing against you but somedays I feel my few comments are better spent elsewhere instead of "preaching to the choir" . This next yr might or might not save us from the reichstream extremist, hang in brother your lower comments are NOT from lack of readership but from your leadership to make things happen.
Will check in often, keep it up , we need you.
Little Rabbit
Uh oh Jon Stewart better watch out or he will end up with some "crosshairs"...er...I mean "surveyors" symbols pointed at him!
ReplyDeleteAlso, too (HeHe) I love The Big Bang Theory....never watched the shows until they put them in syndication...that Sheldon is off the heezy!
I'm sure the gargoyle family probably thinks the show is about SEX! The dummies!
A post about Bristol is on the list
ReplyDeleteJon Swift Memorial Roundup 2011
(The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves)
http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2011/12/jon-swift-memorial-roundup-2011.html
The post is "Bristol Palin's Airing of Grievances", more or less a book review, and is at http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2011/06/21/bristol-palins-airing-of-grievances/
It starts out "Bristol Palin, who is the Melissa Rivers of the GED set, has a book out that she she didn’t write but most likely dictated to someone else once she could talk again after she had all of her teeth removed because they make her ass look big. In this book, Bristol explains that everyone seems to instinctively hate her at first sight"
FauxNews sheeple just love to crow about how their masters dominate cable news ratings. That is the biggest joke of all. FauxNews has NOTHING to do with news. It is just really shitty entertainment for morons. It is nothing but the propaganda organ of the GOP.
ReplyDeleteIt is truly sublime that Stewart is rather single handedly kicking Murdochs fat felonious ass (if you even CAN kick ass single handedly). I am looking forward to the day that Stewart's ratings trump O'Reilly's outright. On THAT day, O'Reilly might as well quit. After all, he premises his superiority on his stellar ratings. If the ratings go, so does his smug sanctimony.
The cynic in me still suspects that the DOJ is waiting to drop a ton of shit on Murdoch this Summer late enough in the year to make it impossible for the GOP to run away from FauxNews fast enough.
Mind you, I wouldn't mind it a bit. I will pop open a bottle of genuine Champagne when that odious turd does his perp walk.
Fuck FauxNews and anybody who watches it.
I love this trend.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm suffering withdrawl waiting for the new season. I'm a huge fan of Big Bang Theory, but for some reason, I never liked two and a half men until Sheen had his meltdown and quit.
What's taking fox so long to implode? I mean, with all the crap going down in the UK exposing murdock as a crminal fraud, you'd think fox would have tanked by now.
This really must be chafeing o reilly and hannity's butts! These guys are comedic gold who do political satire, a totally different genre than the flame throwing bigots that distort the news and pass it off as truth.
Seen as someone's "status" on Facebook:
ReplyDeleteFox News--rich people paying rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people.
The proof of that pudding is how often I also see someone posting their status as something to do with how everything is Obama's fault, carried out by the downtrodden, being the only ones still following his commands.
The economic problems have NOTHING to do with how Cheney and Rumsfeld's firms are still selling $17,000 field toilets to the military, but ALL to do with how some schnook right on YOUR block, is bilking welfare for an extra $50 each and every week!
And its no doubt some gay, Muslim praying illegal Mexican...and a WOMAN, to boot, having just killed her fetus that God put inside her.
How do you access the Daily Show in Anchorage, Alaska? Cable? Which channel?
ReplyDeleteAll this and more at comedycentral.com
I'm w/you Gryphen. I always miss Stewart when he's off,
Don't forget...you can get Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, and many more online if you don't have access to the right channels.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you can get The Big Bang Theory online. Looks like I'm missing out on something interesting.
I wish I could share your optimism and attribute this shift in ratings to a real change in the way people perceive Fox News (it should be, the past few years have seen waaay more than enough evidence that Fox is narrative-driven not news-driven).
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that it's not due to people waking up and realizing that Fox is crap, I think they just stopped watching because lately there hasn't been any real positive news for their demographic.
Who wants to tune in and see that their side is running a bunch of clowns (most of whom are not really running but doing elaborate book and speaking tours) or that their people in Congress are doing nothing but obstructing the President (at the expense of the Country)?
Many of those viewers need to be re-assured that their views are mainstream and that they are members of a majority.
The news cycles of the last six months (since Bin Laden was killed) have made it difficult for Fox to sell them that, especially because the truly A-List candidates chose to sit and wait for '16 (knowing that the President who took out Bin Laden was fairly unbeatable).
Once they get some good news and they can drive their narratives more effectively, their viewers will be back (though I really hope I'm wrong about this).
Fox better hurry up and get rid of Sarah Palin
ReplyDeleteCoast to Coast, baby. Just the right mix of crazy to put you to sleep every night. Especially if you tune in (via computer) to one of the Canadian stations so you're not waking up to Right Wing talk radio. We love Hal & the morning gang on CJOB in Winnepeg.
ReplyDeleteI'm not "young" but I get my "news" from Jon Stewart. With the nasty turn that politics has taken in this country, I can only watch the trainwreck through a lens of humor.
ReplyDeleteNot I. I stopped watching the show months ago.
ReplyDeleteLove Jon Stewart - but he sure takes a LOT of vacations. Seems like every time I want to hear his take on something, he's on vacation.
ReplyDeleteI also worry a bit - he knows he is fake news. If voters (ok, myself included) don't get news anywehre else, what are we missing?
Oh Gryphen, I agree totally!! If it weren't for the Big Bang Theory I'd be lost. Pitiful, I know, but I'm not ashamed.
ReplyDeleteLong live Jon Stewart. Come back, come back.
"Lost," meaning their demographic is dying.
ReplyDeleteRight-wing radio, conservative newsmagazines that give Sarah Palin books away as promo's, and Fox News aren't losing their shine, those sweet sweet subtle rings of a wistful Americana where they were once King - their demographic is just aging out of remote-control range.
Do these numbers include people who view online? The teen and 20-something people I know seem to watch mostly online. And they all love the daily show.
ReplyDeleteThis whole holiday season is screwed up for me. Deep, dark, Daily Show and Colbert Report withdrawal and nothing but Iowa on MSNBC (after excruciating days lost to Lock Up and Caught on Tape.)
ReplyDeleteHope the New Year brings joyous snark from Jon and Stephen - and, of course, this blog.
Not only is Foux Newz losing viewers, Limbaugh and the rest of the extreme right wing talk shows are losing listeners.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that the older listeners are dieing off and the younger people are gradually waking up to the fact that people like limbaugh are all full of the stinkey stuff.
This news is a great note to end the year on. FOX's attempts at humor involve setting Sarah up to say dumb things like criticizing the president's Christmas card knowing that the Reagans used almost the same one for their card when they were in the WH. She is an easy joke especially with her comical physical appearance now. However, it looks like people perfer clever, intelligent wit so Sarah brings down FOX's ratings as viewers aren't interested in anything the screech has to say.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it a sad commentary when we get most of our news from the comedy shows because the "news" programs no longer adhere to even the most basic of journalistic standards? News isn't "conservative" or "liberal." Facts don't have a bias.
ReplyDeleteI've really missed Stewart and Colbert. At least we have Maddow.
I am so happy Jon Stewart gets time off to spend with his family BUT DAMN, he gets a lot of holidays. I can't wait for the new year. Nobody talks shit better than Stewart!
ReplyDeletelol,I have been having serious withdrawals,can't sleep, can't wait to the boys are back on. I think you get the news in a comedic way reaching far more people and stating the obvious through the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert than anything that Faux News puts out. Love, love, love the way they skewer the insane clowns, truly, anyone with half a brain has to know that maybe Fox is propaganda for the right and Stewart just uses their own words to prove a point.
ReplyDeleteGlad that I am not alone.