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.
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Either this article is extremely misleading or I’m missing something.
How can The Daily Show have more total viewers than all of Fox News when later in the article you state that The Factor is the only Fox News show with MORE viewers than the daily show.
The sum of the parts can’t be smaller than one of the parts.
Please clarify,
Stewart averages more viewers then Fox News averages. O’Leily has more viewers, but when added into the mix of all of Fox News, it averages out to be less than Stewarts
Oh jon stewart is on got 2 go watch that !
thank you! Someone else recognized how misleading the article was.
And, if you want to do a fair statistical comparison, you can’t take ONE show and compare it to the average of all shows on another network; you need to average all of comedy central’s shows and then compare to all the fox shows, or, all the shows in an identical time period versus each other.
Otherwise, you could take O’Reilly’s numbers and average all the viewers over 24 hours of all the ABC stations in the country and then claim O’Reilly has a bigger audience than all of ABC.
@Barkley Pontree “if you want to do a fair statistical comparison, you can’t take ONE show and compare it to the average of all shows on another network”
In one way I would agree with you. However, there is one problem with your comment. Comedy Central is that a comedy channel. The one reason why comparing Jon Stewart to Fox News becomes valid is because (at the front end user level) Jon Stewart’s Daily Show IS Comedy Central’s news department. So comparing news broadcast to news broadcast IS valid. Also, comparing news broadcasts in the same time-slot is also valid.
I agree that comparing shows in the same time slot is valid, but that is not what the author did, or may have done with O’Reilly but also was dishonest if he left out the 8pm time slot ratings, which I suspect he did. In other words, comparing O’Reilly at 11 to Stewart at 11 is valid; failing to mention the O’Reilly numbers at 8 Eastern in O’Reilly’s totals is not.
And calling The Daily Show a news show is like calling SNL’s news cast part of NBC News. It’s a comedy show, formatted as a news show, based on events. Don’t get me wrong, I like the show, but calling it news is like thinking Gilligan’s Island is a show about survival.
I don’t think there is a thing misleading about this article. He also did not fail to leave out O’Reilly’s numbers…I just read them.
He also is not trying to call the show a serious news show. Why don’t you actually read the article before trying to defend Fox News? His whole point is that Fox News has reason to fear John Stewart because he’s stealing their viewers, and exposing how skewed their “news” really is. There is NOTHING about Fox News that is “fair and balanced.” Only an idiot would think Fox News was real news any more than The Daily Show.
It’s really not fair to compare Stewart to O’Reilly at 11:00 because that’s too late for O’Reilly’s fans to stay up!
“And calling The Daily Show a news show is like calling SNL’s news cast part of NBC News. It’s a comedy show”
Having watched The Daily Show, as well as having watched O’Reilly, and most of the other shows listed in the article, I think it is perfectly valid to lump them together. O’Reilly examines news events of the day and offers opinioned analysis. Same as Stewart. O’Reilly interviews guests of significant political and newsworthy note, so does Stewart. O’Reilly relies heavily on his personality to sway opinions to his thinking. So does Stewart.
Just because one makes you laugh does not decrease the validity. The Fox programs attempt to make people laugh as well, they just fail in that the hosts simply lack Stewart’s comedic talents. But to dismiss the validity of his show even though it offers an identical style of “news” simply because it makes you laugh is disingenuous. And you know that. The fact that O’Reilly respects Stewart enough to treat him as a “news” equal, frequently appearing with him (and never dismisses him simply as a comedian) is also important to note.
As a side note, upon review, it would be disingenuous of me to dismiss all of the Fox hosts as unfunny and lump them together as not being comedic. Sure, O’Reilly is not usually humorous, but Glenn Beck is well and truly gifted as a clown.
I learned how to make a functional radio out of starfish, thanks to Gilligan’s Island.
If that’s the case I’m surprised we don’t see more Fox News shows on Comedy Central since most of them are a joke.
It would have helped if they had averaged in Colbert as well, but as someone who works in Media I can tell you that bottom line this is really big for Stewart and bad for Fox. There is no network on earth that wants a program on another network to average (which is what ratings are all about) more viewers than their entire network averages. If the program in question spends a lot of it’s time dissecting your network and spitting it out then it is a disaster. Watch over the next few months as Fox undoubtedly pulls out all of the stops to convince its viewers not to watch Stewart.
Are u saying Jon Stewart is a “news” broadcast? Your joking correct?
I’m saying Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’, is as much a news broadcast as anything on Fox. Fox disguises slanted news commentary as news reporting, which it is not. News reporters do just that, report the news, they do not try to tell people how to think about they report. Nor do they tell people what the long term outcome of events will be. Every Fox program does both of those things and more. Jon Stewart discusses current events, pointedly satirizing the now typical slanted commentary with which almost all news is now presented. Americans currently get very little true ‘news reporting’, what we now see can only be described as propaganda broadcasts. Maybe in time Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert can teach people to think for themselves rather than mindlessly absorbing whatever they’re told to believe regardless of the direction it is slanted.
Gee Crystal, Do you think that Fox News teaches people to think OR do they teach people to “think the way Faux News wants them to.(slanted & skewed)
More than once the “News Broadcasters” of Fox News been CAUGHT in a spewing of obviously false data, facts, & WHATEVER ELSE THEY COULD THROW IN THERE to support their weak (& slanted) point, plus the fact that O’Reilly would just start jabber-jawing over a point a guest was trying to make that Bill DIDN’T happen to like or want his audience to hear, sadly many people are taken in by him & the others there, Beck is slowly self-destructing in a slow & painful dance of death.
A bunch of whiners in these postings. You all sound like fox news…how sad
fuzzy math aside…i like jon and believe i share his perspectives. watch it, u might like it
No, not really fuzzy math. Fuzzy math readers. Take apart what the article says. Jon Stewart has an average number of viewers. Fox News has an average number of viewers. Stewart’s average is higher. Among individual shows, only O’Reilly has a higher average than Stewart. But Fox has a higher number of total viewers, because it’s on more hours. Stewart’s numbers are climbing, Fox News’s numbers are declining. All this is good news for Stewart, bad news for Fox News. Interesting factoids, but they don’t say much, at least not the things people are describing above. They don’t show, especially, that Fox News viewers are moving over to become Stewart viewers. They’re just drifting away somewhere, I guess probably to watch the Andy Griffith reruns on the CW.
They’re dying. That’s what happens when you have the oldest demographic in cable.
The Fox Network actively states that PART of their network is News and PART of their network is Opinion/Commetary. The parts that are labeled as News…Stewart beats. The parts labeled as Opinion/Commentary (Beck, O’Reilly, Greta, Hannity), Stewart beats most of them too.
The fact you did not know O’Reilly was not a news program proves John Stewart’s point that Fox deceives its own viewers. Now you know.
Oreilly is opinion/news. Stewart is comedy/left leaning opinion.
ABC/CBS/NBC evening news shows are strictly “news” shows.
Wonder how bad Stewart is beating CNN MSNBC? Funny how that is left out in the article..
Its pretty widely known Fox beats the rest of the cable news. In fact what you state is obvious to most.
O’leily is right leaning opinion for the most part which is why they go so well togehter
Bravo! And remember, any of us can make any stats read ANY way we want them to read. We call it manipulation of data…aka propaganda.
You arnt much smarter than he was are you
One is from a “Comedy” channel, the other is part of a news channel. Apples and oranges. Believe me Fox doesn’t give a damn about it’s rating vs. Dave, Jay or John’s shows. They’re primary competition is CNN and MSNBC etc. AND throughout the day, show to show, Fox TOTALLY dominates their similarly formatted competition, at least doubling and often as much 4x the second best (CNN). Nice try! lol
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/category/cable-news/
You may want to re-read the post. You are missing the point.
That threw me at first, also.
I believe the key is the averaging aspect – O’Reilly alone out drew him, but all fox news shows when average together didn’t.
Yes! You are the first to get it!! There will be a free dinner ticket waiting for you at the door!
Wow, I’m really kind of shocked after reading thru all of these comments and the original article. First, the knowledge of statistics is shockingly low. Here is what is news: Fox News shows all showed a decrease from previous year. Daily Show is showing an increase. That is news and significant. Comparing The Daily Show at 11pm to morning or afternoon shows is like comparing the records of the Red Sox to the Vikings – two different sports people! Different times, different audiences, different and not really a valid statistical comparison.
I watch the Daily Show, most nights it cracks me up. But it is not a “news show”, it’s a comedy show. And the number of people who responded and blasted Fox News shows as being one sided or having an agenda without recognizing that The Daily Show also has an agenda; nor did we hear any mention of the numbers of CNN or MSNBC. Were their numbers up or down? Did you notice those numbers were missing? If you learned that their numbers were down over 20% to 50%, would that make the article read a little different? Or if their numbers were up? Do you comment makers not think MSNBC or CNN presses an agenda? Just because you might ‘agree’ with a host or network, doesn’t mean ‘they’ don’t have an agenda.
And why did Fox News loose viewers? Were they birthers and tea party viewers who left? Old people that died? Was TV news viewership down across the board? (Yes is the answer).
I like the Daily Show but don’t for a moment think John is not pretty liberal in his views; but he will go after the dems and liberals but that doesn’t make him and more objective than O’Reilly, Hannity, or Beck (whom I never watch).
But really people, be a little more discerning in you viewing and thinking. And take some logic and statistical courses.
Speaking of a shockingly low knowledge of statistics, everything on Fox News is supposed to be, em, NEWS. The Daily Show is a comedy show. It’s o.k. for it to have an agenda, be biased, et cetera. It’s not presenting itself as journalism in any serious way. Fox, on the other hand, IS. The take-away from this article is that viewers are finally recognizing that they can get more real substance from a comedy show than from Fox’s alleged news programming. Which is a powerful and sad statement. For additional information, see the documentary “Outfoxed,” which exposes Fox News’ biased reporting.
another wonderful example. I never said Fox News was not biased; my point, which you obviously missed, is all news is biased: Fox, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, etc. And so is The Daily Show. You can’t say it’s not biased because it’s not a news show then compare it to news stations and say it has more viewers for the news. You are dancing on both sides of the fence.
And, in defense of Fox, two studies were done after the 2008 election and both found Fox to be close to 50/50 on it’s positive/negative stories on each candidate. NBC, CNN, ABC were far more biased in coverage towards Obama.
But, in the end, my point is I never said Fox was not biased. And saying I have a low knowledge of stats because Fox is news is a meaningless statement.
Bias does exist everywhere. People interpret events and their meanings differently. What makes Fox stand out is the lack of HONESTY. There is a reason that Fox built it’s entire brand not on the notion that they have the correct viewpoint but that you can’t trust anyone else. Blind loyalty is vital to their success, since simple fact-checking makes them dismissable.
blindness is vital to all the networks. People who swear only by Fox News are no different than people who swear by MSNBC or the BBC or Limbaugh or The Times or WND or MoveOn. Often, simple fact checking make them all look foolish.
I’m not arguing any of your, or anyone else’s, points except to say that if a study found Fox News to more objective in its coverage of the presidential campaign, then I would HIGHLY doubt that study. I watch a lot of both Fox News and CNN, and Fox News was a neverending attack on Obama throughout the campaign, while CNN just carried various sound bytes from the candidates, nothing I’d consider highly biased either way.
Good for you, John! You should question any study or survey. What is the population, the sample size, the breakdown (for example, how many dems, reps, independents; do they vary week to week, are they representative of reality). Is the data being handed out calculated the same as it use to be.
Hello there,
Barkley, I agree that editors, writers, and announcers at times put their bias on stories that they are covering. That’s why you have to take it in with a grain of salt.
I think that Fox News goes a lot further though, they openly create, or re-create stories and statistics; seemingly with the belief that if they repeat it often enough and shout it as loud as possible, it would become truth for all.
Conservative opinions and mine don’t see eye to eye on many an occasion, but I am at least willing to listen to them and see if they hold up – and that is a lot more objective than what happens a lot of the time on Fox News. Watch Hannity, O’Reily, and Beck for an example or twenty.
This is why shows like John Stewart’s, that analyze the days’s news stories (comedy not withstanding) should continue to out perform the kind of shows you see on Fox; and I for one am thrilled about it.
“two studies were done after the 2008 election and both found Fox to be close to 50/50 on it’s positive/negative stories on each candidate.”
Citation please.
Plenty out there–just google it. Plus another study just showed FOXNews was most trusted. And the breakdown was something like 35% Dems/Repubs and 30% other. No opinion had a higher % than MSNBC! TOOOOO FUNNY
Link pls
There is a link to the numbers of CNN and MSNBC RIGHT IN THE ARTICLE? Here is the link. http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=4564
CNN and MSNBC are both stomping on Fox “News”.
Oh, and I have taken logic and statistics. I still say Fox News is a joke compared to any other news source.
Well, call the school and get your money back. Fox News still is out drawing CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time.
Did you look at the source you quote? No. Did you look at the last link, which appears a more objective daily tracking site? No. Because if you had, you would not have made the stomping claim.
Call the school and get your parents money back.
Barkley are you going to go on proving that you have no idea what this article is about?
Nope, I learned a long time ago that no matter how many facts you use, sometimes you just can’t fix stupid
“But it is not a “news show”, it’s a comedy show.”
That is the largest flaw in your argument. Stewart’s show is nearly identical to O’Reilly’s show in that they both offer analysis and dissection of important and newsworthy events. Both hosts interview important figures in the literary, cultural and political arena. Both hosts use their personalities to sway opinion. The way they format their shows- opening monologue, news recap, in-depth story, interview, is also nearly identical. That one is more gifted in comedy does not preclude it from being any more or less “news.”
The analysis on Stewart’s show is easily equal to that of O’Reilly’s show. The interviews are just as hard hitting, with Stewart often putting his guests on a very no-holds barred hot-seat. His complete dismantling and humbling of CNBC’s Jim Cramer was absolutely legendary. And when it comes to significant exposes, it could be argued that Stewart is well in the win column over O’Reilly.The very fact that O’Reilly never, ever dismisses Stewart as simply “a comedian” and treats him as a news equal in their head-to-heads should lend weight enough to the validity of The Daily Show as being every bit the news show as O’Reilly. And if you really try to say Glenn Beck, with his Nazi chalkboard diagrams and his ridiculous hysterical rants is more of a “news” show than Stewart’s, then you are simply being disingenuous.
Jon isn’t liberal, he’s moderate. The vast majority of news organizations are moderate. Don’t buy into the fallacy of “The Liberal Media”, it’s just propaganda from the very real “Conservative Media”. As well, the Daily Show is more than a comedy show. It’s primarily commentary presented in a comedic fashion. Most of Fox is commentary also..disguised as news.
This just goes to show how stupid and INEPT the American people are. Keep believing these clowns. When America’s economy collapses, turning it into a third world nation, China will be the one who has the last laugh.
Do you think it could mean that they know what Fox News is, and between the 2 comedy shows they like Stewarts best?
When will people like you stop screaming the end of america….your so quick to to destroy something instead of being a solution. Economies go up and down all the time and history shows this but whether we are the top world power or china DOESNT MATTER…we will NOT be a third world country and life will go on. If everyone hates how things are here in america so BAD then why dont you stop complaining and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. We the people have the power as we are the ones who put those in the white house where they are.
study history, economies can go down and not come up. Think about this. $1 per second and in about 12 days you have a million bucks. In about 32 years, you would have a billion. And in 32,000 years you get to a trillion. Now figure out 14 trillion dollars in debt.
The rising prices you are finding right now have everything to do with the printing and printing of new dollars, which only have value because we agree they have value. When the agreement ends, it’s just paper.
We’ve been very kind over the years forgiving other countries their debts; I doubt very much the rest of the planet will be so forgiving towards us.
Yeah i know all about that man…Economies do go up and down. They change yes but they dont say in the dumps forever. Ever since the first depression we didnt stay in a depression ever since, where its always hard finding work, housing prices are so low and credit hard to get. It constantly changes going up and down…sometimes the “value” of the dollar is alot and other times not so much…granted its no longer backed in gold but thats not the point. Point is YES it changes and goes back and forth from bad to good always. Your right we have been very gracious to other countries and always there to help them out and i also doubt they would do the same.
yes, the world is shit, jon stewart is an asshole for going after fox news, and nobody in the world has any knowledge of statistics or is as smart and amazing as you are. now, go away!
wow, ouch! How can I possibly argue against such a well formed logical factual retort! How will I sleep tonite?
Oh yes that so hurts our feelings…..=oP
Maybe you should read more. Last month, George Soros funded an international financial composium, attended by the IMF. Soros is on record as wanting to remove the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. When that happens, not if, the US dollar will collapse.
Meanwhile, China is taking action, and holds most of our debt. They are also teaching their student English, many are fluent by age 10.
Just because you cannot see the handwriting on wall doesn’t man it isn’t there.
The masses are easily led, evidenced by the 2008 election.
We will get what we are asking for, and it will take many by surprise. I recommend you begin preparing.
Ok lets see the link to what you say Soros did
((( “Soros is on record as wanting to remove the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. When that happens, not if, the US dollar will collapse.” )))
The Republicans in Congress have nearly universally decided to vote against raising the debt ceiling, despite having voted to raise it eight times during Bush’s two terms. If the debt ceiling is not raised, the U.S. will default on its debts, and the dollar will almost instantaneously be replaced by the Euro or Renminbi as the world’s dominant reserve currency.
While you’re busy fretting over the ethereal threat of some George Soros symposium, the very real possibility exists that the U.S. dollar will collapse this August as a result of Washington conservatives who want nothing more for this country than economic armageddon, so that they can blame President Obama for its downfall. So here’s my question:
Does the Republicans’ vow to vote against raising the debt ceiling enrage you as much as George Soros’ symposium does? If not, why not?
Didn’t your people learn better during the failed “rapture” crap about making vague doomsday predictions? LOL, our economy already collapsed. And we didn’t even drop to 2nd world nation status.
Drop the doom, and follow the money, buddy.
Why do you care is the economy collapses? Aren’t you getting raptured up to Heaven any day now? The minor material concerns of this existent should be irrelevant to you if you are a believer.
It is true: Figures don’t lie….but Liars can sure figure!
I’ll watch Jon Stewart again and again and again and again, unless I want to consume wine at nauseum- Fox winey News that is. No news is good news especially when it is overly-processed Fox winey News. I’ll gladly enjoy me’ some fresh news perspectives on the Daily Show.
Don’t just sit there scratching your head, get yourself some Daily Show at 11pm.
Daily and Colbert ROCK the HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Interesting article demonstrating just how ignorant the American masses have become over the years. A comedy show is considered a valid source for news. Fox News is less bias than any other American news source.
How long before our President is a pro-wrestler? Idiocracy is reality. Stop blaming the politicians for our problems, the bulk of the American people are blathering idiots, especially the “younger hip-hop braindead generation” those with any brains are fed up and tired. The people are the cause of American’s many problems the politicians are only a symptom.
America is collapsing under its internal weight of stupidity and cheeseburgers.
“Interesting article demonstrating just how ignorant the American masses have become over the years. A comedy show is considered a valid source for news. Fox News is less bias than any other American news source.”
Not according to Indiana University. Here is a study I would like to track down the original copy to:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/4159.html
The headline for this article is:
“It’s no joke: IU study finds The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to be as substantive as network news”
America is collapsing under the internal weight of morons like yourself who keep voting against their own economic interests ….
I’m glad I read the comments. This isn’t an accurate comparison. The Daily Show exposes Fox News (I throw up in my mouth a little every time I put those two words together) but doesn’t compete with it. While it seems inconceivable that anyone at Fox seriously takes what they do as ‘journalism’, they try to make their viewers believe that. TDS not only trumpets the fact that they AREN’T doing real journalism, they point out that Fox, CNN, MSNBC et al aren’t, either. It would be like comparing Rotten Tomatoes to a movie studio. Fox creates fantasy; TDS reviews it.
And Dancing With the Stars destroys Mr. Stewart…so what?
Bully for John! Shows that, in the end, laughter beats HATE and PARANOIA any day! Keep up the great comedy John, you’re changing AMERICA!! :—)
He should be on prime-time!
It would be real interesting to see those numbers drilled down to see how many are voters
I think Stewart’s not a comedian as much as he is a modern satirist. He often uses ridicule,irony and sarcasm to get his point across and he does so effectively and amusingly. I think Cobert falls in this same category. I don’t think either specifically target Fox but it’s such an easy target it has to be hard to resist.
Well, what a good little Obamaite Stewart has turned into.
The administration had declared war on Fox News, but that backfired on them. With the whole of the MSM and entertainment industry at Obama’s disposal, the tactics have changed, but the war rages on.
When will We the People finally use our brains to ask why Obama is so threatened by one media outlet, and why he is so focused on bringing it down?
People, we should be rallying to defend the one outlet that isn’t in the tank for Obama, instead of cheering the haters of free speech on.
I’m afraid we’re going to get what we deserve here; a state controlled media.
LOL, a state controlled media? Which silly group do you belong to that came up with that one?
More like a corporate-controlled state, one of whose branches is the media.
Good point! Take NBC, owned by GE. How many billions in defense, energy, and Amtrak turbine contracts did they get after being the arm of the Obama propaganda machine?
When media is owned by large corps that stand to make billions in government biz, the truth is sold.
GE is one of the biggest corporations in the world. Get a grip on yourself. GE made nothing from Obama
Our govt is too broke to run anything, not alone a media outlet.
No, it isnt. But the republicans want it that way
[...] on Sarah Palin Exploits A Loophole To Be Both On Fox And Run For PresidentBarkley Pontree on Jon Stewart’s Ratings Are Now Higher Than All Of Fox NewsCommonSense on After Plot to Rig Recall Exposed, Wisconsin Republicans SueLeslie on Payback to [...]
Apparently, statistics and satire are both incredibly misunderstood by many of the commenters here.
And you were about to enlighten us?
Jon Stewart ROCKS!!!!!! Keep up the good work! You are THE BEST! If you keep exposing those guys at FOX maybe someday this country will be really better!!!
You and Colbert are doing an excellent work! Keep it up please!
The Fox News viewers have a higher percentage of voting than the Comedy Central viewers. In the end, that’s what counts.
There’s a big difference between news and news commentary. We loosely refer to a lot of Fox and MSNBC programing as news, but they are news commentary, not intended to be straight news. And by nature, they will have a bias, even a strong bias, because it’s all about the commentator’s opinion. I see many of them refer to themselves as journalists, which may or may not be the case. I think it should be evident to viewers, what is news and what is commentary, but it’s not. If it has the word “news” after it, it should be straight news. (NBC Nightly News) If it has “show” after it, it’s a show – commentary/entertainment. Beck, O’Reilly, Chris Mathews, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart all have “shows.” You watch and get another perspective on the news. I think it’s helpful to get a journalist’s perspective – as long as they’re basing their opinions on actual facts. Jon Stewart brings satire to the table, which offers up a fresh way of looking at the absurdity of what goes on in politics.
But even straight news has a slant. I often will read a news story on MSNBC.com, then go over to foxnews.com to see how they cover the same story. They are often nearly identical, showing they were supplied by AP or some other service. Most recently, I did the double check when Donald Trump decided not to run for president. MSNBC sited possible reasons that he decided not to run, including several bankruptcies and theorized that he may not want to disclose all his financial dealings to the public, which he’d have to do to run. FOX covered the announcement as if a great man had bowed out most honorably. There was no mention of anything negative in his background. Both were factual, far as I know, but because MSNBC doesn’t like him, it brought up negatives about him, while Fox left all those facts out. If you didn’t know anything about the Don, and read only MSNBC, you’d think he was a crook. If you only read Fox, you’d think he was a saint.
not to mention, the daily show has a much higher online viewership as well!
[...] away. I’m still pretty much out of the loop, but here is a story to warm your heart – Jon Stewart has better ratings than every Fox show except O’Reilly. Only The O’Reilly Factor (2.8 million) drew more total viewers than The Daily Show (2.3 million). [...]
FOX News designed to help corporations and wealthy people prosper, go to FOX News. When you want a bit more balanced approach go anywhere else. Some time we wonder about our young folks and if they are paying attention. It seems if they are rejecting FOX News there is hope that the people of America will one day take our country back from corporate America (Big oil, pharma, insurnace…)intent on crushing the middle class.
Now if we can only get all the old frightened geezers to tune out FOX and vote in their own interests, not the interests of the oligarchy, we might really have something!
The most important fact you need to know is that O”Reilly covered the war on Christmas, when no other prominent commentator would. He covered an event that didn’t happen.I wouldn’t call that news. I believe there is another name for what O’Reilly does.
Hey now in all fairness Colbert also covers the war on Christmas. Take that however you will.
Excellent!
So there’s hope for America after all.
Yes Fox News audience is older…… and wiser.
I agre. Thats why Fox is losing veiwers. they are wising up
Fox News and Comedy Central. Is there a difference?
I get a HUGE chuckle when I watch either of them.
Interesting how off-base the comments got. It’s not unfair to compare Jon Stewart’s ratings to shows on Fox News. Though the name “news” is in the name of the channel, hosts such as Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck will argue that they are simply entertainers, not news reporters. Such a stance can give them the ability to talk about whatever they want, and most choose to talk about their opinions. They’re not news programs, so they don’t have to have traceable sources for their opinions, or even any source at all.
The Daily Show is also an entertainment program, though of late it has been uncovering fallacies in the sources of Fox News’ programs while also mocking the style of them (notably The Glenn Beck Show). The trouble is that Fox News’ programs are on a network with “News” in the name, and therefore, considered creditable sources of information among a certain percentage of the population. No one on the network is willing to dissuade that unless challenged directly, for fear of a drop in ratings. If challenged directly, again, the host in question would dismissively respond that he (or she) is just an entertainer.
What is addressed in this article is a drop in ratings of Fox News programs, though, in comparison to the Daily Show. As across the board, the programs compared are “entertainment programs,” it’s not an unfair comparison. Also, the statistics are not invalid, as Stewart’s amount of viewers is compared directly to that of popular shows on Fox News. The title might be misleading, as the O’Reilly Factor’s prime-time showing has more viewers than the Daily Show.
Of course, what most of the comments address is the implied meaning behind that. Perhaps the viewing public is mentally dropping “News” from the “Fox News” network, thereby discrediting the source of information. Or perhaps everyone is getting older since Jon Stewart began his tenure as host of the Daily Show. Perhaps people are just growing tired of the popular shows on Fox News. The trouble with statistics is that they are simply numbers. The people using the statistics can draw their own conclusions about the implications. Sometimes they are easy to draw, other times they aren’t. With things such as tv programs in general, the question of why someone favors one program over another is up to the interpreter, and answers will vary widely.
With the inherent bias of all things political (political things are biased one way or another, and never neutral), this leads people to go from their political bias, using finger-pointing and blaming, keeping the terms “liberal” and “conservative” merely hinted at but rarely mentioned for fear of disrupting the diplomatic nature of argument, as both terms conjure unpleasant thoughts in the minds of members of each group–though the bias is still there. Considering the ease of offending a commenter on a message board, a lot of the commenters here have felt it necessary to let loose the derogatory opinions they have of each other, while some have felt free to throw around misconceptions about the article.
The trick is to put your own political beliefs out of your mind for a while. Forget your own opinions and read the article. What is said in the article doesn’t mean anything that anyone holds dear is doomed forever. Any victory or failure is very limited here, and really it’s out of the hands of the audience. The main purpose put forth by a TV network, or anyone who is behind a TV program such as the ones mentioned in this article, is to attract viewers. In other words, the host or the writing team are at the steering wheel, and the viewers are passengers. Or, possibly, they are the sheepdogs and the audience the flock. That depends on how you choose to describe it. The navigator will be the network, though (or the shepherd in the latter description).
Viewers mean more advertisers. Advertisers mean money. Money means financial success of the network and the hosts. Financial success is funnelled into marketing of the show, which gets more viewers, more advertisers and more money. So probably all this means is, Jon Stewart will continue doing what he’s doing, since it’s successful. The popular programs on Fox News will find something else to do with their shows, to keep or build an audience.
If Fox News has higher ratings than the other news networks and cable channels, doesn’t that mean that Stewart also blows them away?
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Jon Stewart’s show has a higher average viewing audience then Fox news has an average viewing audience all day.
If Fox news has a higher average viewing audience all day then other cable channels that yes John Stuart has a higher average viewing audience that they do.
However, I do not believe, and I don’t have the data that John Stewart has a higher daily average viewership then the three networks
but let’s are also remember that SpongeBob blows Bill O’Reilly and Fox news away as well
[...] jubilation was found all through the Comedy Central studios… Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show now has more viewers than all of the Fox News’ lineup. According to the May Nielson ratings, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart beat the entire Fox News [...]
[...] Courtesy of Politicususa: [...]
The news outlets in the US are all biased. Personally I dislike O’Riley, Beck, and especially that idiot Hannity, but they don’t claim to be news. Those of you who claim to have “fact checked” the hard news shows(Smith, Bair)in the afternoon make me wonder what source of wisdom you are using. But using your instead of you are and dragging in tired hippie fears (big oil, and other evil corporations) give me a hint about the people commenting. PS if you have a retirement plan where you work, you are probably in BIG OIL,
I think everyone is hung up on the word “news.” The Daily Show is not a news broadcast like the evening news, neither is The Factor. They are political commentary. Both shows. While the shows have vastly differing agendas, they both provide points of view. As far as the numbers go, for every show on television, it’s all about the ratings. What the article really points out is trend. The Daily Show trend is on the raise, while Fox News (as a whole) seems to have peaked about two years ago and is starting to slide.
[...] [...]
I’ve worked in both the broadcast news as well as broadcast advertising business with my college major being broadcast journalism.
Believe me, Fox News does NOT compete with Jon Stewart in the ratings game. Fox competes for the advertising dollars against other cable news organizations, and not against Entertainment/Comedy shows. Same goes for the network news shows as well, all of which probably have less viewers than Stewart or any of the other late night comedy shows.
In it’s category Fox competes with other cable news shows and totally dominates EVERY time period throughout the day as the link below shows. Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bret Baier, Shepard Smith, Greta Susteren, even Fox and Friends ALL have audiences at least twice as large — OR as much as four-times as large — as second place CNN in EVERY time slot! No one in the news business gives a damn about Dave’s, Jay’s or John Stewart’s ratings. It’s apples and oranges.
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/category/cable-news/
[...] is an excerpt from politicususa.com - please visit their site for the entire [...]
It’s reassuring when Jon Stuart satirizes and exposes the extreme right news. It is so beyond comprehension that they continue to even exist; who do they even appeal to anyway? Luckily, ignorance is slowly disappearing along with the bitter, rasist, geriatric ramblings of old men that are fox news.
If Jon Stewart is teaching audiences how to watch the News, then why isn’t he being more proactive in pointing out who is delivery good news? The American people run this country, well suppose to according to the Declaration of Independence, so why isn’t he delivery the outcome that will solve the people’s problems by leading them on what to do. He makes people laugh at all the overwhelm in life, which is really nice cause he sure is funny. In the end though it just adds to the clutter rather than making life better.
Ermm – I do hope all Americans realise that the rest of the world is cyring laughing at anyone who is gullable enough to be taken in by Fox “news”. You have the highest internet connection rate in the world – use it people! Search world news (NOT just CNN). Get other people’s perspectives. Challenge what you hear. Shame for anyone taken in unless it’s just for tabloid enjoyment (which is fun but who believes the Nat Enquirer). That’s all that Murdoch is about. He doesn’t care about religion, he cares about money. Whatever makes a profit. He’s cashing in on you guys.
If you change the headline to ‘Jon Stewart’s Ratings Are Now Higher Than EACH Of Fox News’ shows’ then I think it is less misleading and NO LESS AWESOME!
Will you all please start putting your commas and periods inside of your quotation marks? I’m begging you, each and every one? And, for the love of all that is holy, could you not use them when unnecessary? (For a good chuckle on that subject, I recommend The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com.) It makes reading the comments unbearable.
“could you not use them when unnecessary?”
Could you please take grammar lessons? For the lose of all that is holy I hate having to read a sentence 50 times to understand it
Please do not use quotation marks when they are not required.
Is that better? I do not need grammar lessons, but thank you.
“I’m begging you, each and every one?”
Oops! I meant for that question mark to be a period, obviously. I guess I got too worked up about poor punctuation I forgot to pay attention to my own!
This is an apples and oranges — or apples and wildebeests — comparison. Jon Stewart is a clown — a very funny clown — and Fox News is a conservative news and commentary counterweight to such liberal media as NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, NPR, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc., etc.
Actually Stewart gives his take on the news ina funny way, that ultimatly makes far more sense than the news you get from others.
NPR is not liberal. And if the others are liberal, why do they spend more time on conservatives news?
Jon Stewart Rules
Does anyone else find this article to be a bit of a relief? In general FOX news only makes me nervous because I know that people are watching it. It still makes me a little nervous that O’Reilly has more overall viewers than Stewart… but at least he’s beating out those other jackasses.
Walter Cronkite is dead and so is factual reporting. Every news program has an agenda, both left and right. There is probably more truth in Jon Stewart than any news network.
[...] Jon Stewart’s Ratings Are Now Higher Than All Of Fox News http://www.politicususa.com/en/jon-stewart-fox-ratings [...]
Fox is not a news network..Only opinions just as Stewart has opinions ..So JOhn beat fox on rating ..Should not be hard to do..Fox is nothing but propaganda for the right and never say anything good about Democrats..Have you ever seen any current GOP presidential candidate appear on any other show but fox..NO you have not ..Palin,Bachman only go on fox to get softball questions
I think the comparison is valid, I saw no subterfuge here or anything misleading. Jon Stewart now averages more viewers than Fox News. Period. He does. Didn’t say he had higher ratings than all of them. Pointed out that O’Reilly was higher, and gave the number of viewers. How can anyone think this is in any way misleading when the author laid it all out? It seems to me hard line conservative talk is trending aggressively downward in general. The loss of ratings on Fox is mirroring the downward spiral of conservative AM talk, and major markets are dropping the the nationally syndicated guys in favor of more toned-down local guys. Personally, I don’t see how (or why) anyone can stand to listen to an angry “republicans are always in the right, democrats are always wrong” partisan hack like “Sean Hannity” (pick one) or take anything someone like this ever says seriously, and he – and his ilk, certainly are never funny or entertaining… just constant bitching and bitterness. Who wants to listen to that all the time? Surprised it took so long. Also, a possibility could be Glenn Beck. Beck – as any fool can plainly see, is either a huckster or a nut or both. You used to have to wait until 2:00am and point your AM radio antenna in a very specific direction to hear a static-y rant by some loon like this back in the day. Fox gave him a prime time show. Perhaps Beck was given too high a profile, and he cast a pall over the entire conservative media. Not married to this notion, but it’s a possibility.