The Republican Death Star Is Crumbling As CNN Beats Fox News For 4 Straight Days

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The long-term problems at Fox News were exposed as CNN beat Fox News among the key age 25-54 demo for four straight days last week.

TV Newser reported:

According to Nielsen data, CNN beat Fox News for first place in the demo most coveted by advertisers from Thursday (6/25) through Sunday (6/28). Fox News remained first among total viewers.

During Friday’s huge news day-the Supreme Court gay marriage ruling, the escaped prisoners in New York, terror attacks in Europe-CNN won the demo for total day with an average audience of 243,000 (compared to Fox News Channel’s 193,000).

In prime, CNN won in the demo each hour from 4 p.m. ET through 11 p.m., with Anderson Cooper taking a narrow win over FNC’s O’Reilly Factor while Bill O’Reilly was off for the night, and Wolf Blitzer beating FNC’s The Five by a big margin, 405,000 to 277,000.

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The rating data reveals two problems for Fox News. First, Fox News is not the place where viewers go to get their breaking news coverage. Secondly, Fox News can’t attract younger viewers to replace their aging and dying viewer base.

Younger viewers avoid Fox News like the plague. The whole purpose of moving Megyn Kelly to 9 PM was to attract younger viewers. The Five was also intended to attract younger viewers. Instead, Wolf Blitzer and his beard of doom is attracting more younger eyeballs than Fox News.

Fox News is a big fish in an evaporating cable news pond. Jeff Zucker appears to be well on his way to righting the ship at CNN. Zucker has found that mix of hard news, original series, and documentaries appeals to a broad spectrum of viewers.

As long as Fox News has the conservative market cornered, they will continue to lead in terms of overall viewers, but when one examines the long-term future, Fox News has some real problems. The United States is moving to the left as a country, and the big bad Republican media Death Star that is Fox News is beginning to show signs of crumbling.

Jason Easley

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