Fox News has gone all Benghazi all of the time, and the result has been Fox’s worst rated non-holiday week with younger viewers since before 9/11/ in 2001.
According to The Wrap, “During the week of May 5, 2014 — the most recent for which numbers are available — Fox News delivered an average of 180,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demographic in live-plus-same-day measurement across the total day. That measures programming from 6 a.m. until the following 6 a.m. Fox pulled the same number the previous week, the week of April 28.”
To put this into context, Fox News only averaged 4,000 viewers on Christmas week last year. Fox’s other record low came during Christmas week in 2012. In order to find a non-holiday week where Fox News had fewer younger viewers, one has to go the whole way back to the week before the 9/11 terror attacks.
It isn’t a coincidence that Fox News has seen more younger viewers turn off their network after they decided to go completely crazy on Benghazi. Republicans desperately needed something to distract the country away from the fact that they were completely wrong about Obamacare, and Fox News was happy to provide it to them by trying to turn Benghazi into the biggest political scandal since Watergate.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Fox News has had great success with their formula for turning right-wing conspiracies into legitimate news in the past, but Benghazi has been the rare conspiracy that is actually harming the network’s ratings. Younger viewers how demonstrating how much of a turn off this non-scandal is by abandoning Fox News. As each day passes, it is becoming clear that Benghazi is scandal that only your grandparents could love.
One has to question how long Fox News will continue to beat the Benghazi drum if it means low ratings with the most critical demographic. The media isn’t buying it, and even younger Fox News viewers don’t care about Benghazi. It’s the scandal that never was.
Benghazi isn’t going to bring down Obama, but it is already destroying Fox News.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
