Sunday, May 22, 2005

Since the United States presidential election in November of 2004, viewership in the 25-54 age bracket of Fox News has fallen from over 1,000,000 in October to under 450,000 in April, according to the Daily Kos, a liberal weblog.

Ratings for cable news stations have fallen globally since the election, but most have since stabilized, making Fox’s continuing decline unusual. CNN’s ratings, as an example, increased 27% in April. Fox still leads CNN in this demographic by nearly 35% however, with CNN only managing to reverse its viewership decline in March 2005.

The FOX News Channel is a US cable and satellite news channel. It is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. As of January 2005, it is available to 85 million subscribers in the U.S. and to further viewers internationally, broadcasting primarily out of its New York City studios.

According to the BBC, FOX News’ profits doubled due to “patriotic coverage” of the Iraq conflict, with as much as 300% increase in viewership, with 3.3 million average daily viewers.

The 2004 election coverage by FOX News ranked higher than the next two cable news competitors combined. For President Bush’s address, FOX News rated 7.3 million viewers. NBC, CBS, and ABC rated 5.9, 5.0, and 5.1, respectively.

Fox News viewership in the 25-54 age bracket (Source: Daily Kos):

Oct. 04: 1,074,000
Nov. 04: 891,000
Dec. 04: 568,000
Jan. 05: 564,000
Feb. 05: 520,000
Mar. 05: 498,000
Apr. 05: 445,000
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