It looking like there is real trouble at Fox News. A new PPP TV news poll found that viewer trust in Fox News has fallen to an all time low. Only 41% of viewers trust Fox News.
First, their ratings sunk to a 12 year low. Now, viewers don’t trust Fox News.
Public Policy Polling has been doing this poll yearly since 2010, and while many trends have stayed the same, there has been a complete reversal in viewer trust of Fox News. In 2010, 49% of viewers trusted Fox News 37% did not. Today, 41% of viewers trust Fox News, and 46% do not. Trust in Fox News decreased by 8 points, and distrust of Fox increased by 9 points. Fox has maintained their trust level with Republicans. They have only dropped four points in four years, 74% to 70%, but distrust has soared with Democrats (52% to 66%), and Independents (44% to 52%).
The one trend that has stayed the same is that Democrats tend to trust everything but Fox News, while Republicans only trust Fox News. Democrats trust PBS the most (72%), followed by NBC (61%), MSNBC (58%), and CNN (57%). Except for Fox News, Republicans have negative trust differentials with every other news network. PBS is the most trusted non-Fox News channel at (-21), followed by NBC (-48), CNN (-49), ABC and MSNBC (-56 each). As usual in these polls, Fox News was both the least trusted network (39%), and the most trusted (34%). Ironically, that 34% figure is right around the ballpark number of self identified Republicans in the United States.
The reason why Fox News is the cable ratings leader is because their audience won’t watch anything else. Democrats split their loyalties four ways between PBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN, but Republicans only watch Fox.
After numerous wrong predictions and years of flat out propaganda campaigns against Barack Obama, it’s not a surprise that Democrats and Independents would no longer trust Fox News. What is surprising is that it took Independents four years to turn off Fox. When considered with Fox News’ ratings decline in the key 25-54 demographic, it is clear that the Fox audience is narrowing.
The portrait of today’s Fox News viewer is a white Republican with an average age of 66 years old. In other words, Fox’s viewership completely mirrors the base of the Republican Party. The network’s decision to drop Dick Morris was likely made to address this trust issue, but the larger problem is that Fox News is being left behind by the changing demographics of the country.
Firing Sarah Palin and Dick Morris was the rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic. Viewers will not trust Fox News as long as they continue to put Republican propaganda ahead of actual news reporting. Like the Republican Party, Fox News faces a demographic problem. They can’t attempt to broaden their audience or the old white Republican viewership base will rebel, but their current course is a ratings death sentence.
Fox News has a huge problem that won’t be solved with cosmetic changes. Fox News was built by powerful conservative white men. As their power diminishes, so does the relevancy of the television network that they created.
First, their ratings sunk to a 12 year low. Now, viewers don’t trust Fox News.
PoliticusUSA
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j
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Good, I hope they keep going – down. down,down.
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Sandra
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Someone ought to do a poll on Fcuk News supporters/listeners education level. My bet is it’s lower than the national average.
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djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 5:49 pm
Study: Fox ‘News’ viewers have an IQ that’s 20 points lower than the U.S. National average
http://underthemountainbunker.com/2012/12/08/study-fox-news-viewers-have-an-iq-thats-20-points-lower-than-the-u-s-national-average/
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UncaJoe
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 1:34 am
While it sounds true that study was faked…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/exclusive-pr-guru-behind_b_2268959.html
It’s one of them “2 Good 2B True” things.
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Geno
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 8:34 am
Geez….It took people long enough to catch on to that Foreigner Owned XXX snooze…….
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Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 9:04 am
Murdock owns the majority of Fox. The saudi only owns 7%
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Jim Hubbard
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 4:43 pm
Regardless of anything else that happened that Fox News got tragically wrong, the results of the November 6th election was the final straw. Republican ideologues had been promised since January 2009 that President Obama would be a one-term president “like Carter”. Indeed, Mitch McConnell called it his #1 legislative priority after the 2010 mid-terms.
Everything those low-information voters were promised for the past four years failed to materialize. President Obama not only won a second term, he won it in historic fashion. Obamacare was upheld by the SCOTUS. Fast & Furious fizzled furiously. Benghazi bombed. To top it all off, the Tea Party is competing with cancer in the hierarchy of favorability.
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Dar Winn
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 4:45 pm
just read the ppp pdf on fox.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_206.pdf
the tea baggers, fox, and the GOP all imploding in sync… oh to dream the impossible…..
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novenator
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 4:54 pm
You mean there are people stupid enough to have ever trusted this propaganda?
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djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 5:15 pm
Stick around,they will come to defend faux dishonor
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LookingForward
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 5:09 pm
I think Rupert Murdoch created Fox News in the late 90′s to try to discredit the news in the US. This is around the time the word Liberal media was floating around and later became popular! If you do not like the facts of the news being reporting….just distort them….if you say something enough, people will start to believe it! Fox News is truly the sheep channel! But, the sheep do not realize they are being herded!
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Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 6:07 pm
but but but they are the biggest!
I used to follow the polls on General GWB’s ratings on pollingreport.com. Fox routinely had some of the lowest numbers for Bush. I am shocked they didnt stop polling. That told me that a good many were not good soldiers
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RMuse
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 6:14 pm
Best news all week. Still, looks bad for America that 41% of viewers are blatantly stupid, deluded, and mesmerized by lies.
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TigerLily
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 7:24 pm
I really hope you’re not just getting my hopes up high that people are finally starting to realize that FOX is not your friend..at all. But they will lie you into poverty so they can keep their multi million salaries never ever giveing sound and balanced news. Matter of fact now news at all. Just lies and distortions and freaking out old folks and anyone dumb enough to let them scare you.
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nabsentia23
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 7:34 pm
Geez, if Fox News actually reported the news, then maybe it wouldn’t be in trouble now? Ha!
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Kim
Feb. 6th, 2013 at 9:26 pm
They disgust me!
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Ronda
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 3:02 am
As a loyal FOX viewer I thank you for helping FOX being NUMBER ONE for the last 12 years. So keep on watching.
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Rob Bermann
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 8:10 pm
Oh No, I don’t watch Faux News. Colbert, Stewart and MSNBC have interns for that. Then the various Non Faux shows play the most outrageous of the Faux BS.
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Buck
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 3:13 am
Whaaaat are you all saying?!?! FOX News is the only trusted source for comedy! Oh wait . . . they’re even funny.
They’re more like a horror show over there.
They’re a bunch of ‘Horrorists’.
They horrify people.
They terrify people.
So wouldn’t that make them . . . terrorists?
Mental and emotional terrorism: the actual breaking of peoples’ psyche through terrible, horrifying and terrifying acts against the mind.
People who watch FAUX Noiz exclusively are cutting themselves off from what sane folks call reality.
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Rho
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 7:53 am
What four words can you say that will make most sane people leave the room? “I’m watching Fox News.”
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Kai Price
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 8:03 am
The National Enquirer or Weekly World News should buy them. Stories about Bigfoot and Elvis would only help their ratings at this point.
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Julie
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 8:31 am
What self-respecting Democrat would watch Fox News in the first place? The fact that trust amongst Democrats dropped doesn’t mean much to me. I think I would be permanently nauseated if I watched Fox News for more than 10 minutes. I have relatives that absolutely love Fox and I do not understand them. This story would make me happier if it showed that Republicans and Tea Partiers were losing their faith in Fox.
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Norma Rowland
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Ronda,
I’m sure your post was a joke, right no one would really post that they are a loyal Fox watcher. I mean really you’re trying to tell us you have an actual brain and you watch wake News?
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Elly
Feb. 7th, 2013 at 8:06 pm
I”m glad. i hold Fox in general and Bill O’Reilly in particular responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller. Fox is also responsible for the wounding of Gabby Giffords and the murder and wounding of many of the people who were there that day in Tuscon when a Fox obsessed, mentally ill young man sprayed bullets at a peaceful political gathering. Fox is responsible for yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. When your sole product is encouraging hatred of a group or groups of people without regard to the facts and your audience doesn’t see or hear anything but you, you have a responsibility to tell them the truth.
I don’t have cable because I would be forced to pay for Fox. You can’t have a cable plan that doesn’t include Fox in my area. I don’t want my family exposed to the lies, racism, sexism and bigotry that Fox peddles.
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