Fox News Thrives In The Age Of Obama
Liberals may be ascendant around much of the nation — in control of both houses of Congress, a majority of governors’ mansions and, of course, the White House — but times could hardly be better at the Fox News Channel, the cable channel liberals love to hate. “There were a couple of people who basically wrote about our demise come last November [and] December and were, I guess, rooting for us to go away,” said Bill Shine, senior vice president for programming at the Fox News Channel. “With this particular group of people in power right now, and the honeymoon they’ve had from other members of the media, does it make it a little bit easier for us to be the voice of opposition on some issues?”
Why, yes. Yes it does. Ratings estimates from Nielsen Media Research indicate audience levels are up significantly — to extremely high levels for cable news — making Fox News among the highest-rated of all basic cable channels. (MSNBC has had some of its best ratings in its existence since veering to the ideological left in prime time last year, but both it and CNN lag well behind.)
Shine argues the ratings boost is because Fox has taken a skeptical eye to the new administration — which it has done in no small part owing to its trio of pundits, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.
O’Reilly is often in full populist swing; Hannity is newly freed from liberal co-host Alan Colmes; and Beck, recently arrived from CNN Headline News, has more than doubled last year’s audience in his 5 p.m. ET time slot. Each is largely right of center; in Beck’s case, largely right of right of center.
In a recent interview at Fox News’ Manhattan studios, Beck worked up a full head of steam over Obama’s spending plan, saying, “Unless we hold them responsible for their actions — unless we actually say, ‘Enough!’ Unless we say, ‘You play by the same rules that we have to play by’ — unless that happens, we have an out-of-control government that will steamroll us.”
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Comments
So that’s what you like about Keith Olbermann, huh Joe? He remains so calm and controlled while he launches into one of his daily liberal tirades. Lay off the Hookah, Joe.
The truth is certainly no friend to liberal philosophy, so it is understandable they would hate FOX News, while they lap up the slime running down the leg of MSNBC.
I don’t trust anybody who gets angry while he’s talking.
Getting angry while someone else is talking is normal,
but if you get angry while you talk, something is wrong upstairs.