Mmmm . . . maybe. But living in a two-insomniac household, I think it might have something to do with the fact that CNN has a lot of competition in primetime, while Red-Eye is lined up against . . . infomercials for the TurboCookerExpress.The show is looking up year-to-year as well. Compared to September 2008, the program grew 23% in total viewers and 43% in the A25-54 demographic. But let's look at the individual shows. Last week we wrote about the 13 shows at the top of the ratings in September - all on Fox News. Red Eye, naturally, wasn't one of them. Here's where they fell - this is the full chart for September programs.
Red Eye averaged 432,000 total viewers and 202,000 in the demo. Let's deal with the demo first - CNN's 8pmET show, hosted by Campbell Brown, averaged 191,000 in the demo. Let's just let that one sink in - Fox News had more people in the all important A25-54 demographic watching their channel at three in the morning (east coast time) than CNN had for the show that leads off their prime time. This says as much about Fox News as it does about CNN. Wow.
In total viewers (and demo), Red Eye beat the cable news competition three hours later. All three other morning shows, MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN's American Morning and HLN's Morning Express had less viewers in September.
Part of the credit for this can be attributed to Red Eye, which has been consistently growing since its debut in 2007 and built up a solid following. Host Greg Gutfeld and regulars Bill Schulz and Andy Levy have been effective in connecting with their viewers through new media and other means. Some credit goes to Glenn Beck, whose repeat at 2amET was added a few months ago, providing a nice lead-in for the show. But in general, this shows not only the continued and expanding dominance of Fox News, but a major boost for the program some people thought wouldn't survive.
« Matt Taibbi Turns Software Critic | Main | Health Care: What's the Big Rush? » Fox's Red-Eye Beats Primetime Cable Shows06 Oct 2009 07:19 pm
Via Instapundit, Mediaite reports that Fox's late night show Red-Eye is outperforming CNN's whole primetime lineup. Sez Mediaite:
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If you were a commenter, I would dismiss you as a troll. But since you are the hostess, I guess that puts you in the category of "provocative". :)
Fox is stomping all over CNN with their (FOX) primetime lineup as well. And, of course, Red-Eye also has to compete (if you want to call it that) against not only the infomercials, but also . . . CNN in the same time slot.
One of the bullet points from Mediaite:
Face it, Fox puts out a product that people want. CNN and MSNBC, not so much.
CNN does repeat their primetime lineup in the overnight, but still- it is a bit shocking that their primetime numbers are lower than FoxNews late night numbers. What is especially surprising, now that I look at them, is that the absolute numbers are so low.
I wonder if CNN fact checking the SNL skits has anything to do with this...
Derek
I'm always amazed when I travel to Europe how much better CNN International is to both CNN and CNN Headline News. In fact, I find CNN to be better than the BBC. Turner has the capability of creating good programming.
But CNN is simply awful. It's pretentious in a very tacky way.
Perhaps Red-Eye does as well as it does in it's time slot because it's competing with infomercials. (Personally, I'd rather watch the infomercials. I think Red-Eye is the kind of humor that's best appreciated after a few beers. Since I don't drink...) If it aired during prime time, Red-Eye would have to compete with a lot of other programing and Red-Eye's numbers might suffer. But that doesn't explain why Red-Eye beats CNN's and MSNBC's late night offerings. After watching CNN during prime time, wouldn't a discerning insomniac news junkie prefer MSNBC's reruns to anything on Fox News (FNC)?
Red-Eye's doing very well. It's audience is beating it's competitors in it's time slot. It's beating the competitors' morning news shows. It's beating the competitors' prime time news/pundit shows. Part of that says a lot of good things about Red-Eye. It says even more about just how poorly the other cable news networks are competing with FNC. FNC pulls in more viewers than the combined viewers of other three cable news networks, CNN, MSNBC, and HLN. FNC's true competitors are ESPN, USA, and the other entertainment cable channels. Considering FNC is STILL not offered as part of the "basic" package by all cable companies, the fact it's outperforming the other news offerings is even more amazing.
This brings up something I've wondered about - why doesn't CNN try to compete by actually bringing some balance to their coverage, and by being willing to cover relevant stories (such as ACORN or Van Jones) even when the stories don't support their side? Is it because they really think that FNC's success is through political slant?
People would rather watch FNC because it covers issues that people care about and let's both sides state their case. Yes, there is a conservative slant (at least relative to the others), but one can be fully informed of both sides of an issue by watching FNC, while the other network and cable news channels try to protect their viewers from such confusion.
That's easy. CNN has some monopoly power. They can use that to either maximize profits, or to evangelize. They have chosen the latter option.
What do you mean by "monopoly power". I guess CNN still has a great brand name. But outside of that, nearly all cable packages have MSNBC and Foxnews too.
CNN can't survive on their brand name forever. Ratings matter.
LOL! you are really a knee-slapper Ann! Both sides of the issue? Sure, if both sides are exactly the same.
What this illuminates for me is how much of a trick CNN are missing out on by having a right wing show, for balance, at 2am. Not something expensive, but a Tucker Carlson type thing. Or a comedy show with open liberal bias. Or a bipartisan one. Apparently any idiot can make money in the wee hours, because no one else in the marketplace has considered it.
With DVR's, who cares when it is broadcast. I watch stuff that I like when it is convenient for me.
If you get Bloomberg TV (which I do now that we've switched to cable from satellite), you get live programming all night, anchored from their London office.
Haven't seen Red Eye in a while, but it can be pretty funny at times, particularly Andy Levy's bits. It's amazing they are generating those ratings with 3rd tier guests.
Indeed. On those rare occasions I have insomnia, Bloomberg is what I watch if I want to watch news/financial shows. Of course, it is what I watch for financial news during the day, too.
It doesn't hurt either that Linzie Janis is easy on the eyes.
Wow. 401 thousand viewers, i.e., more than 1 in every 1000 Americans, is awake at 3 a.m. (and 4, 5 or 6) watching Red Eye. One fifth of the Daily Show audience.
That's pretty surprising. I've never actually watched the show on TV, but, judging by the clips on youtube... let's just say one can never be too vigilant of the false consensus effect.
Fox News consistently has much higher ratings than CNN and MSNBC.
But living in a two-insomniac household, I think it might have something to do with the fact that CNN has a lot of competition in primetime, while Red-Eye is lined up against . . . infomercials for the TurboCookerExpress.
Oh, come on, Megan, that's silly. That would be an excuse if Red Eye to had a bigger share of the audience — but Red Eye has a bigger actual audience, more actual bodies watching the show at 3AM..midnight than CNN has in actual audience at prime time. They're somehow drawing more people in the middle of the night than CNN can draw while everyone is awake.
Also in mediaite - We already knew that the mainstream media, Wikipedia, science and reality had an unfair liberal bias. But looks like the Good Lord himself is also in the tank:
Holy crap. This is the non-ironic guidelines for the new Conservative Bible:
I wonder what's the favorite Fox News show of these people...
Re-writing the Bible is pretty much everyone's favorite past-time. The only thing that changes is what each clique of self-inspired writers wants to include and exclude.
I don't know if this is captured in the data, but here on the West Coast it is on at the much more reasonable time of 12:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.
What's astounding to me is how few people are watching any cable news at all.
Fox's best shows don't come anywhere close to getting the ratings of such powerhouses as Hannah Montana, SportsCenter, the Ultimate Fighter, Family Guy reruns and Spongebob. And CNN and MSNBC's ratings are so low they might as well not exist.
I mean, seriously...there are more 25-45 adults watching Spongebob Squarepants reruns than O'Reilly and Olberman. Last Friday there were more people watching the That's So Raven rerun than were watching Hannity.
WTF? I know it's just cable news, but jebus. CNN gets 700,000 prime-time viewers in a nation of 300 million people? Wow.
I’m not surprised by that. My television watching is pretty much limited to whatever is on at the gym (Lifetime Fitness has screens with ESPN, each of the major cable networks and most of the local stations on) and I’m more likely to watch a Family Guy rerun than I am any of the news shows.
You have 5 burger joints. They make burgers of varying levels of quality. You have one wing joint. Maybe the wings are crappy. But its a wing joint. I don't follow TV news, but my understanding is that Fox News is pretty isolated in their slant. So they have a captive market. The other news networks at least pay lip service to impartiality or maybe one explicitly skews liberal (Daily Show?). I wouldn't know. But progressives and moderates have a lot more vendors for what they want. Most of the progs I know also don't get their info from the box.
What makes your analogy interesting is the following question:
Why don't one or two of the burger joints shift over to selling wings?
IF the objective here is profitability, they obviously would.
But they aren't. Why not?
Because in this case, the burger joints view burgers as a religion. As the "one true way." They deny the very existence of wings, and they mock people who consume them - even as wing consumption grows, and burgers become passe.
In short, they are biased towards burgers, regardless of the people's expressed preference for wings - or at least burgers AND wings.
I think Pizza Hut sells wings now. But there is a perfectly rational, non-religious reason for non-wing places to avoid selling wings: It can make people think less of the quality of your main offering. Consider this thought experiment: you want to order Chinese takeout. You have a choice of two Chinese restaurants. One also sells wings. Which one would you order your Chinese food from?
There's a huge self-selection problem in news, one that much of the industry is in denial about.
Lip service is all they pay.
Impartiality is a central journalistic tenet. While humans aren't wired for objectivity, its a goal that journalists are supposed to pursue. So I think the reason more news channels don't adopt a stated bias is the same reason more churches don't embrace gay rights. It would put butts in seats. But its contrary to their interpretation of Christianity. Also, for many people, we expect journalists to at least attempt impartiality. I could only get my news from a vendor that aligns with my values, but I'm actually a pretty firm believer in the "Your friends tell you what you want to know. Your enemies tell you what you NEED to know" school of thought. Again, this is all academic to me, as I have zero interest in the Shouty McBlusterson show as a mechanism for being informed. I prefer light over heat.
But the issue we're discussing here is why CNN is sticking to its bias, even though the bias is costing them money as well as violating their journalistic tenets.
Liberals can sleep at night. Or they aren't plagued with fever dreams of kenyan muslim nazi communist dictators trampling the constitution that Jesus gave us.
But seriously, why are we even discussing this here? What happens at instapundit should stay at instapundit.
This is a truly fascinating phenomenom.
I'm going to avoid some of the political discussion , and just say: this has been happening for YEARS and yet the only adaptation by FNC's competitors is to get angrier, more in-your-face, and less balanced.
And yet that failed years ago, but a new business model has not yet emerged.
I agree about a former commenter who said CNN International is a good station. I watched it in Italy this summer, and it was nice. The BBC was ok too. Al-Jazeera was surprisingly good.
It seems our dedicated new channels decided to focus on entertainment instead. And so far, Fox has them beat for garnering the largest audience.
Joe
What's amazing is Red Eye at 3AM is beating CNN's numbers... at 8PM.
I think Megan’s point that there is more competition in primetime (not just other stations but also doing things other than watching television) than when Red Eye is on is probably correct. If I’m going to watch television during primetime (I don’t anymore but I used to), I’m going to tune into a episode of Heroes, the Office, or another show that I enjoy before I waste time on a cable “news” show regardless of the station it’s on. If I’m up in the wee hours and I’m channel surfing, I’m more likely to gravitate towards an original program (especially if it’s funny) than I am a rerun of a primetime show or an infomercial.
Why would I want to watch/listen the virulent America-hating from NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, NY Times, LA Times, Village Voice, etc..? I'd rather read the Sarah Palin blog, at least I know she loves America.
Ahahahah, liberal media get owned... Seriously though, this is hi-larious.