An expensive fight for Fox, Drudge and others.

[kansasblue]

Defending the administration to the end both Fox and DrudgeReport are trying their best to stem flow of blood from the Foley scandal.

Fox is pouring on the propaganda and has even gone so for as to label Foley a Democrat. Over at DrudgeReport they are spinning a story that the emails were a prank.

And those tactics may be successful. Like a troop jumping out of his foxhole to throw themselves at the tanks. The tank may pause briefly and then moves on.

Fox and DrudgeReport are loyally throwing themselves at the tank. But they are paying a heavy price. Sure a few people went away from those broadcasts thinking Foley's a Democrat. But many more went away noting the blatant bias of Fox. And over at DrudgeReport the same is true. They may win a few short term battles at best but each time there is damage to their credibility.

[maseman]

1. As someone who works in the ratings business

I would think that Fox, Drudge, Hannity, Rush and the rest of the shills would love to see the Dems at least take one house. Instant ratings baby.

Hannity and Rush's ratings have been declining since the 2004 elections. I mean they have taken some dramatic drops nationally. As you know Fox has been going down also. Dems win the house and it would help the right-wing talk hosts and pundits.

[civildisoBDence]

2. Can you tell us more? Any links?

It would do my soul good to see these ratings drops in a nice, colorful bar graph.

Hannity and Limbaugh are political versions of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. They prey on the gullible and ignorant while posing as righteous champions of everything good and holy.

Newsprism

[maseman]

9. Man I would love to

Nielsen and Arbitron keep the ratings data VERY confidential primarily because the clients (the media outlets) pay tons of money for the research. Some data gets posted like the radio station basic Persons 12+ ratings in markets. You can find it at www.allaccess.com. You need to subscribe, but it is free. You can see general ratings for all radio stations in the country. Downside is you can only see the radio stations total week, not individual shows.

Nielsen releases some data also. I know USA Today prints the previous weeks ratings for hte networks only.

I have some very in-depth charts, especially for radio, that I would love to publish. However the copyright infringement rules are very strict plus I value my job.

Put it this way. WBAL in Baltimore, a huge AM station, dropped this year due to low ratings. They went to local talk. That in and of itself shows you that their numbers are declining.

[LTR]

15. Same thing happened in Minneapolis/St. Paul

KSTP, one of Rush's earliest affiliates, finally announced intentions to drop Rush and eventually Hannity (once his contract with the station expired). Clear Channel stepped up and flipped a 100,000 watt FM to all-talk (as KTLK-FM) and picked up Limbaugh this past January 1. The result? Not only is the new talk format lower than the previous formats for 100.3 FM, but their overall rating is now down to 1.5. Meaning that they are right around the range of the local Salem AM talk station, an all-female talk FM station, and the local Air America affiliate. Again, this is a 100,000 watt FM station!!!

Meanwhile, KSTP went back to a mostly-local approach and landed the Minnesota Twins from WCCO. Ratings have dropped a share since dropping Rush, but they are able to save the money paid to Rush and Hannity and keep all local ad inventory, therefore making them more profitable in the long run.

[maseman]

17. Yup

Hard to believe after 50 something years the Twins would leave WCCO. Of course that happened in St. Louis with the Cards and KMOX.

KSTP is a good station. The Program Director there is a great guy and really "gets it."

If the model in Baltimore and Minneapolis works, you may see some other large market AM stations doing the same thing.

[LTR]

18. KSTP was a great talk station in the early-mid 90s

Sure, the had Rush, but also had a lot of other good hosts, including Bob Yates, Barbara Carlson, Turi Ryder and the late Don Vogel. The station was pretty well mixed in regard to political ideologies. Sure, they moved a bit more to the right when they had Jason Lewis, but didn't shift as badly as most stations. I hope they can return to the way they used to be, and they can utilize people like Tommy Mischke more.

WCCO also used to be good, but once Cannon retired, it was all downhill from there. Did you know Phil Hendrie was at the station around ten years ago as well? They underused him, especially since he seemed to be the only host anyone ever talked about. Would have made a great replacement for Cannon, but Phil went on to bigger and better things.

CCO's loss of the Twins likely has something to do with the owners. CBS is pretty tight-fisted when it comes to spending money on can't-miss prospects. The Twins are one of the main things propping the station up in the Spring and Summer. But CBS also dumped baseball contracts in St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Many heritage CBS talk stations seem to be mere shells of their former selves. Pure stupidity.

[maseman]

19. I didn't know Hendrie was in Minneapolis

I knew he used to be at WIOD in Miami with Neil Rogers and Mike Raneiri.

On the surface it seems dumb for CBS to drop the baseball. But the problem is they are losing money with many teams. The right's fees have gotten so large that in many cases you may spend $6 million per year for the baseball broadcast and only bring in $5 million in revenue. Not a good business model.

Baseball does bring good ratings but it is primarily in the evening and weekends. Those ratings don't translate to the radio prime-time of 6a-7p time periods (the drive times.) In Pittsburgh they left KDKA simply because Clear Channel offered them a great deal.

Glad to know that KSTP is back doing what you like. Hope their numbers beat the right-wing syndicated guys.

[Greatwildbeast]

3. Silly Fox! Tricks are for pervs!

These rightwingnut windbags must have been molested or surrered extreme abuse as kids themselves. They simply are without conscience when it comes to lying.

the latest casualty being Chris Wallace. Can you imagine how badly his father (CBS broadcaster/reporter Mike Wallace) feels about his own son's sellout to the extreme right?

[FSogol]

4. Since when does Drudge have an credibility? n/t

[Greyhound]

13. A pathetic loser that hit one story by accident and was immediately

funded by Mellon-Scaife and the rest of the masters.

[Lex]

5. They have lost a lot cred with people who still didn't understand

how blantantly partisan they are. I think there still were people who didn't understand what partisan shills they were. The Clinton-Wallace thing helped too.

Certainly other media is now treating Fox News like the clowns they are.

[MikeNearMcChord]

11. I agree, people are not looking this as GOP vs. Democrat.

They are looking at this as right and wrong. And shill defence of the GOP leadership, is blowing up in their faces, look at the calls for Hasdtert to go down. People do not humor to grown men preying on young people whether it is Joe the automechanic or a congressman, and leadership hiding this while at the same time playing the moral card, well they hung by their own pretard.

[City Lights]

16. I think you hit the nail on the head.

Certainly other media is now treating Fox News like the clowns they are.

Seems like for awhile other networks tried to emulate Faux. No more. Their erroneous reporting is starting to make news on other channels. Making fun of Faux and exposing their bias has moved from the Comedy Channel to MSNBC (maybe others too, but I've only seen it on MSNBC).

[IDemo]

6. Did Faux ever acknowledge the 'mistake' or apologize?

Doubt it, just curious...

[EFerrari]

8. They said it was a mistake.

On re-run, they took the Dem label down but didn't replace it with a Repub label.

[IDemo]

10. Bet there were happy grins all around the table from the talking heads

[EFerrari]

7. Zogby is polling about the Foley scandal, asking if

the event makes you more or less likely to vote and for whom. Also asks if you are ashamed of your party or of the national leadership of your party. :evilgrin:

[spanone]

12. I wonder why?

[seabeyond]

14. remember emails out a year, fox had them, NO oct surprise nov election

from the dems. they were out for a year, they could have exposed. crew had in summer, the only liberal tilt and they immediately handed to fbi inmid summer, the only doing what was right. if these have been out for a year, no way can blame a dem to effect election. not to mention not a thing to suggest it, everything suggests otherwise