CNN Tubing while Fox Ascending

Ed Driscoll points out the Huffington Post entry from CNN's co-founder.

CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld tells the Huffington Post (huh, why would a CNN man go there to post?) that “seven months after Barack Obama’s victory, CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain”:

Nine years ago, when FoxNews sprinted past CNN to become America’s number one news network, I attributed its ratings gains to the election of George Bush and the triumph of Fox-watching conservatives. I figured conservatives would be savoring their victory while liberals were averting their eyes in disgust. For the next eight years, I measured political sentiment in the United States by comparing the size of the FoxNews audience with the combined size of the CNN/MSNBC audience. In this space, I even predicted, with reasonable accuracy, the percent by which Barack Obama won the election based on the split in the news audience.

Now, seven months after Barack Obama’s victory, CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain. From May of last year to May of this year, CNN lost 22% of its total primetime audience. MSNBC was down 2%, while FoxNews was up 24%. In the key advertising demographic (25-54), Fox was up 31%, CNN was down 37% and MSNBC was down 26%. In hard numbers, Fox had 109,000 more viewers than last year while CNN lost 113,000. CNN averaged fewer than 200,000 25-54 viewers in primetime. Even MSNBC averaged more viewers than that.

Total day was nearly as bad, with Fox up 24% and CNN down 7%. MSNBC was down 2% in total viewing. Fox is beating CNN almost two-to-one in most categories.

There’s no need to throw any more numbers at you–Fox is gaining, CNN is wilting. Why is this happening when the country still seems about 58-42 in favor of Obama? My best guess is the passion of those who detest Democrats, liberals, and in particular, Barack Obama.

You don’t think it could also have anything to do with moments such as this and this, do you? And as P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters asks, “Maybe the TV audience is growing weary of the MSM treating Barack Obama as Sort of God and want some realistic news coverage of his administration.”

It is odd that they always want to posture their losses as to being something wrong with Fox veiwers. Fox obviously gained many veiwers when they started because the conservative half of the country didn't want to listen to the propaganda the MSM or MoP if you like, was forcing down their throats. Now that Fox is gaining even more, would you think maybe the change is more complicated than the old "they hate the One" theme these companies have been pushing?

Maybe the public is tired of the slanted and irresponsible reporting. Or maybe they want reporting that doesn't just carry a party line. (I'm not saying Fox doesn't carry a party line, I'm saying they report less of the party line than the others do.)

You'd think that the MSM would learn from trends and maybe do a better job at analysis rather than falling for these moronic whines.