Obama Fuels Huge Fox News Viewership

From Newsmax ~ South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis, frustrated by a restive crowd at a recent forum to discuss health care reform, suggested people turn off the TV when Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck came on.

Big mistake.

Judging by the escalating boos and catcalls, squirting lighter fluid on burning coals would have been wiser. Beck is a hero to many people who are not buying the Age of Obama, and so is Fox. The network was already on pace for its best ratings year even before the health care debate sent viewership jumping during a traditionally slow month for news.

How emboldened is Fox? After President Barack Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs warned against "cable news" derailing health care plans, Bill O'Reilly assumed he was referring to Fox and seemed ready for a fight.

"Who's that going to help?" O'Reilly said. "Us, that's who. Our ratings are already soaring because we don't denigrate the protesters, the way a lot of other TV news organizations do. They're dying. We're on fire."

Fox's strong year hasn't come without controversy. Some critics worry about overheated rhetoric (Beck has called Obama a racist and joked about poisoning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) and suggest Fox has helped lead, instead of just follow, the president's opponents.
Fox's viewership is up 11 percent over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. CNN and MSNBC, which benefited from interest in the campaign last year, are down. O'Reilly, who already had cable news' most popular show, Beck and Sean Hannity lead the way.

The ratings expose as naive anyone who believed that the dawn of a Democratic government in Washington would hurt Fox.

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Fox News Has All Top 10 Cable News Shows

The Fox News Channel is having its best year ever and aired all 10 of the top-rated cable news shows in the second quarter of 2009.

"Since Obama came into office, Fox has continued not only winning, but doing so at unprecedented levels," Michael Calderone noted on Politico.

Fox showed a 33 percent rise in total viewers last quarter compared to the second quarter of 2008, and a 54 percent increase in younger viewers for its primetime weekday shows.

The biggest gainer on Fox was Glenn Beck.

"Beck, who takes aim at the administration repeatedly, is proving an even bigger draw since coming over from HLN: His 5 p.m. slot is up 110 percent from last year," Calderone wrote.

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Fox News Dominates Cable News Ratings

From www.politico.com ~ As MSNBC and CNN battle for second place, second-quarter Nielsen numbers show Fox News' programs now rank one through 10 in total viewers on cable news.

Since Obama came into office, Fox has continued not only winning, but doing so at unprecedented levels.

As the Hollywood Reporter noted last week, the network is having its"best year yet," with the competition in the ratings shifting from not only the news networks but all of basic cable. Indeed, Fox came in 3rd this quarter, behind only USA and TNT.

Across the board, already top-rated shows are up by percentages in the 30s and 40s. But Glenn Beck, who takes aim at the administration repeatedly, is proving an even bigger draw since coming over from HLN: His 5 p.m. slot is up 110 percent from last year. Such a trend shows commentators like Beck can thrive in the opposition.

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O'Reilly, Rivera Tee Off On McAlester Judge

From The McAlester News-Capital ~ Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera again condemned local District 18 Judge Thomas Bartheld on a national television program Friday night for his sentence of a child rapist.

During the O’Reilly Factor segment aired on Fox News, they expanded their criticism to include District Attorney Jim Bob Miller, and vowed to take their complaints to Oklahoma’s governor.

“I think the state of Oklahoma has to investigate,” O’Reilly said. “I’m going to ask the governor on Monday to launch an investigation into this and to explain to the American people why a child rapist, who raped not one but two, gets a year in prison. I think if we don’t investigate this, Geraldo, we don’t have a justice system in America.”

Read the entire story at http://www.mcalesternews.com/local/local_story_157175737.html.

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Nielsen: MSNBC, CNN Ratings Plummet

MSNBC and CNN’s primetime news programs have suffered an incredible nosedive in ratings since Barack Obama was elected president, Newsmax reports.

Ratings for “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC at 8 p.m. have plunged a dizzying 42 percent since October, shortly before the election. CNN’s 8 p.m. show, now being hosted by Roland Martin, has seen a 49 percent plunge over that time period, while “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News has dipped only 15 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Bill O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. show remains the top-rated cable news program, averaging 2,650,000 million households per night in April, more than the combined totals for Olbermann’s program (938,000) and CNN’s 8 p.m. offering (613,000) — with more than a million households to spare.

In the key demographic of viewers 25 to 54 years old, Olbermann has lost 53 percent of his average nightly audience, a precipitous plunge. Rachel Maddow, who follows him at 9 p.m. on MSNBC, has lost an astounding 65 percent of her 25-to-54 audience since October, and her 819,000 households in April compare poorly to Sean Hannity’s 1,953,000 households on Fox.

O’Reilly has also trounced Olbermann among viewers aged 35 to 64 in April, with 1,724,000 viewers, down 19 percent since October. Olbermann suffered a 49 percent drop in that demographic and had 1,151,000 viewers.

Read more here.

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Nielsen: CNN's Weakest Showing Ever

From Nielsen Media Research ~ CNN is poised to finish March third in the prime-time weeknight ratings behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the first time this has ever happened for the channel that pioneered the cable news genre nearly three decades ago.

CNN says its overall business is healthy and it is not straying from its straight news path. But it is suffering more audience erosion than its rivals since the peak days of the presidential election, further proof that the opinionated prime-time shows on Fox and MSNBC have greater audience loyalty.

CNN's weekday prime-time ratings are relatively flat compared to last year during the primary campaign, up 1 percent from March 2008, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Fox's ratings have jumped 30 percent and MSNBC, the new No. 2, is up 24 percent.

The biggest growth in cable news is for CNN's partner, Headline News, which is up 62 percent.

Fox remains on a mountain above its two closest competitors, with its prime-time audience in March more than that of MSNBC and CNN combined. "The O'Reilly Factor" has done particularly well, keeping more of its postelection audience than anything else on CNN and MSNBC.

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Debate Gives Fox Record Viewership

Fox News Channel averaged 11,098,000 Total Viewers during last night's vice presidential debate, most among the cable networks and the highest viewership in the network's 12 year history.

CNN averaged 10,685,000, and MSNBC averaged 4,412,000.

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Chris Wilson Now A Fox News Regular

Oklahoma City and Washington Republican pollster and consultant Chris Wilson is now a regular commentator on Fox News.

Wilson joins "Fox And Friends" regularly to offer thoughts and observations on the presidential race, primarily, and what all the polls mean and how the candidates are handling the issues.

Recently, he was asked on the Fox morning show to discuss the accuracy of polls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI7Lb7P66Po.

A former executive director of the Texas Republican Party, Wilson was named a "Mover and Shaker" in American politics by Campaigns & Elections magazine in 1999. He's frequently quoted in national publications. He's a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and Georgetown University in Washington.

Wilson's recent appearances can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/WilsonResearchStrat.

His next scheduled appearance is Friday at 1 p.m. CDT.

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Fox News: Lott To Resign U. S. Senate Seat

Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, will announce his resignation effective this year, FOX News has learned.

Lott, 66, was re-elected in 2006 amid speculation that he would retire. Instead, against his wife Tricia's wishes, he ran again, regaining a Senate leadership position after being forced from the top Republican seat in 2002, following remarks he made that were seen as racially insensitive.

Lott, who is serving his fourth Senate term, was expected to discuss his plans later Monday.

Lott becomes the sixth Senate Republican this year to announce retirement, possibly posing more difficulties for an embattled GOP that will be trying to retain the presidency and fight further losses to Democrats who regained control of both houses of Congress last November.

Lott's decision to remain in the Senate last year was aimed in part at using his clout to push for repairs to his state's coastal region after the wrath left by the 2005 hurricane season, including hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Lott's own coastal home was destroyed by the storms.
Two senior Republican aides tell FOX News that Lott has informed a small inner circle of colleagues about his plans.

The senator, after 34 years of public service in Congress, is not wealthy like many of his colleagues and has talked for some time about leaving so he could earn more money. So, aides said, the senator decided to leave by year's end to circumvent new lobbying rules — instituted by Congress this year and effective in 2008 — that that would bar members from lobbying their colleagues after two years.

The so-called "revolving door" policy in effect now keeps former members from lobbying their colleagues for one year. The changes were made in the wake of the scandal surrounding former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, R, would appoint a replacement for Lott, although it was not immediately clear clear whether an election would be held during the regular general elections next November, or whether there would be a special election before. Whoever wins would serve out the remainder of Lott's term, which ends in 2012.

In his Senate position, Lott is the whip, or vote-counter-in-chief, second in GOP seniority only to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The position — to which he was elected by his Republican colleagues — was a sign that Lott had been forgiven for the remarks four years earlier during the 100th birthday celebration for then South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, who ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform.

At the event, Lott said Mississippi voters were proud to have supported Thurmond's candidacy, and added: "If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."

A few days later, Lott issued a statement saying he had made "a poor choice of words" that "conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."
Lott's many apologies were to no avail. He lost the support of President Bush, who said his comments did not "reflect the spirit of our country."

Lott later wrote in a book — "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics" — that President Bush hurt his feelings by disavowing the comments in a tone that was "devastating ... booming and nasty."

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Mainstream Media's Selective Reporting Noted

Fox News Opinion ~ The mainstream media likes to brag about bringing us all the news that’s fit to print. Remember these recent stories?

~ Public schools in California next year will be required to teach 5-year-olds that homosexuality is normal and healthy — and that kids pick their "gender."

~ Television meteorologist John Coleman, who founded the Weather Channel, published a scathing article dismissing global warming as "the greatest scam in history."

~ Rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq fell in October to the lowest level in 21 months, after peaking in June before the "surge" in forces got under way.

Draw a blank? It could be because the mainstream media mostly ignored these stories, or briefed them on page A13. To hear about them, you likely had to rely on talk radio.

Buried speech isn’t free.

Read this entire oped piece at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312489,00.html.

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Fox News: Bush, Congress Find Little Favor

Voters are displeased with both the president and Congress, according to the latest FOX News poll reported at http://www.foxnews.com/ today.

A 55 percent majority of Americans disapprove of President Bush’s job performance while 35 percent approve and the most frequently mentioned reason is the Iraq war; 45 percent of those unhappy with Bush blame the war.

Congress gets an even worse rating: 25 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove.

After Iraq, the most common reason is that the president is generally “doing a bad job” (19 percent). A handful of voters say they disapprove because they disagree with Bush on the issues (7 percent), they don’t like him (6 percent) and that he doesn’t care about average people (5 percent).

Click here to view full results of the poll (pdf)

Of those that approve of Bush, 40 percent say it’s because he’s “doing a good job” overall, 17 percent mention the job he is doing “fighting terrorism,” 9 percent say they agree with him on the issues and 8 percent approve because he is honest.

The national telephone poll was conducted for FOX News by Opinion Dynamics Corp. among 900 registered voters from October 23-24. The poll has a 3-point error margin.

Among the president’s party faithful, his approval rating is now fairly consistently below 70 percent; 68 percent approve today, down from 81 percent this time last year (immediately before the midterm election, October 24-25, 2006).

Bush’s approval rating rarely gets into the teens among Democrats these days; currently 12 percent give a thumbs-up as do 26 percent of independents. Fully 81 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents disapprove of the job the president is doing.

“Bush’s ratings just don’t move very much,” comments Opinion Dynamics Chairman John Gorman. "He has a core of Republican supporters who keep him from plunging too much. Democrats are pretty much critical and the week-to-week differences come primarily from independents that move back and forth.”

The war in Iraq remains the number one issue for Americans; 36 percent identify it as the most important problem facing the country, followed by health care at 12 percent and the economy at 11 percent.

Despite the president’s low performance ratings, a slim 53 percent majority say he is still a powerful player in Washington considering the failure of the Democratic Congress to override Bush’s recent health care bill veto. Some 35 percent think he is a lame duck president.

More than 7 of 10 Republicans (73 percent) think Bush is still powerful compared to 40 percent of Democrats.

Turning to Congress, the poll shows that even fewer Americans are satisfied with lawmakers than with the president. Some 25 percent say they approve of the job Congress is doing while more than twice as many — 54 percent — disapprove.

A 58 percent majority of Republicans disapprove of the Democratically-controlled Congress, as do 57 percent of independents and 48 percent of Democrats.

Furthermore, 45 percent of voters say the country would be better off throwing out most members of Congress and starting over with new people. Of course that seems to apply mainly to someone else’s representative, because 50 percent think their own representative deserves to be re-elected.

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