Conservative Refocus

By Barry Secrest

Liberal political website Politics USA has issued a story stating that the Jon Stewart Show has beat out the entire Fox News Network  in terms of daily viewership for the month of May. But when you look at the fine print, the story that Politics USA concocts is totally misleading within its entire premise.

In fact, The O'Reilly Factor beats out Stewart's show on its own and without any help from any of the other Fox News programs. Even better, when the Factor runs the second time it actually creams Stewart's show by almost a factor of twice the number of viewers.

We simply find it fascinating that for the purpose of viewership numbers, Liberals will separate Fox News' actual news programming from the Fox News opinion shows. However, when it serves to somehow suit their purposes, various liberal activistic sites will include both the opinion shows and the Fox News programming under the penumbra of Fox News in total.

We are not surprised.

Hardball with Chris Matthews, for instance, beats out CNN’s “John King USA” in total viewers (751,000 vs. 664,000). Now, with those top numbers for MSNBC and CNN, check out the Factor's numbers of 2.8 million in comparison:

The O’Reilly Factor with 2.8 million viewers clearly chews up and spits out its top liberal competitors handily and without even breaking a sweat.

Never mind the fact that the Factor is based upon reality and Stewart's show is based on satire and pure entertainment. Look at even departing Glenn Beck's 1.812 million in comparison to the leaky numbers for both CNN and MSNBC's top shows. Beck clearly pounds both of the Liberal's shows put together and then some. Politics USA also denounces Fox 10% drop in the rating for May which still leaves Fox as handily beating the competition where it counts which is in primetime. In fact, were I a betting man, I would venture that the Fox News dented ratings have everything to do with their fallout with Glenn Beck among a number of other issues which have their Conservative viewers a bit upset of late.

Either way the real story is "No Competition."

Below is the Politics USA story:

According to the May Nielson ratings, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart beat the entire Fox News network in terms of total viewers. Stewart averaged 2.3 million viewers, while the Fox News prime time and day time line up averaged 1.85 million viewers.

According to Comedy Central, The Daily Show is dominant in its time slot,

For the month of May 2011, “The Daily Show” averaged 2.3 million total viewers and a 1.2 P18-49 rating. Versus May 2010, “The Daily Show” grew an astounding +19% in total viewers, with incredible double-digit ratings growth across all key demos including P18-49 (up +21%), P18-34 (+22%), P18-24 (+21%), M18-34 (+18%) and M18-24 (+21%).

“The Daily Show’s” 1.344 million P18-49 viewers led all late night talk shows in the demo for the month and, with a 2011 YTD average of 1.25 million P18-49 viewers, “The Daily Show” trails only “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (1.27 million P18-49 viewers) in the benchmark demographic for the calendar year crown.

While Stewart is on the rise, Fox News had a really, really bad May. Total viewership was down 10%, and Fox News lost viewers in the 25-54 demo in every prime time show. Bill O’Reilly was down 9%, Sean Hannity was down 6%, and Greta Van Susteren dropped 12%.

Just how big is the disparity between Jon Stewart and Fox News?

Only The O’Reilly Factor (2.8 million) drew more total viewers than The Daily Show (2.3 million). Jon Stewart beat everything else on Fox News. Stewart beat Sean Hannity by 246,000 viewers. He topped Bret Baier by 399,000 viewers. Jon Stewart beat Glenn Beck by almost 500,000 viewers, 1.812 million to 2.3 million. He beat Shep Smith (1.712 million) and Greta Van Susteren (1.702 million) by almost 600,000 viewers each. When Stewart and O’Reilly go head to head at 11 PM, Jon Stewart tops Bill O’Reilly’s replay by almost a million viewers (2.3 million to 1.321 million).

This is why Fox News both hates and fears Jon Stewart. Not only is he more popular than they are, but he devotes much of his program to exposing the biased reporting of FNC. Even worse, Stewart is teaching his younger audience what Fox News is all about. Stewart doesn’t exclusively take on Fox News. His problem is with television news in general, but since Fox is the biggest offender, they get most of his attention.

Jon Stewart is the biggest threat to Fox News’ future out there. He is literally teaching his audience, which is bigger than FNC’s, how to see through the partisan propaganda that Rupert Murdoch has based his network on. Stewart is educating an entire generation of viewers on how to watch cable news, or more specifically how not to watch Fox News.

Unless Fox News can figure out a way to attract younger viewers, they are facing a future where their audience will eventually, literally die off. A 2010 survey found that the average age of the Fox News viewer is 65 years old. Fox has the oldest audience on all of cable. (FNC’s audience is older than The History Channel, The Hallmark Channel, and The Golf Channel).

Jon Stewart is on the non-prime time hour of 11 PM, yet he outdraws 2/3 of the Fox News prime time line up, and he has more viewers the entire FNC prime time and daytime lineups combined. Only Bill O’Reilly is preventing Stewart from being more popular than every single program on Fox News.

The proof is in the numbers, and the numbers don’t lie. Jon Stewart is more popular than Fox News.

The story sounds so unconvincing the writer can't even convince himself in his summary sentence~BLS

More Satire Fom Liberal Politics USA