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Lost in all of the hullabaloo over Glen Beck calling Barack Obama racist (then famously saying Obama was better than McCain would have been as president),was the fact that all of this attention given to Beck would cause people to tune in to see what he said, even as advertisers were pulling away from him.
It's that and a still-healthy dose of leggy blondes that caused Fox News to dominate cable news. Ever see all the hotties Fox lined up over the past few years? Here's a look:
And if you've got an issue with my use of the term all the hotties, it's your complaining about it that produces the buzz that keeps it going. That's Fox's formula, to be the itch that you want to scratch. It's a method that goes all the way back to P.T. Barnum.
Barnum, the creator of the circus that grew to be the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, was known for a saying: "There's a sucker born every minute" and even though his competitor actually said it, that's something Fox News figured out a long time ago.
(Barnum was also known for his enjoyment of whatever publicity he could get, a school I subscribe too!)
The sucker is the American public with its weird duality of watching most what it claims to hate the greatest. I often watch in horror as Keith Olbermann spends much of his time talking about what Fox News anchors said (thereby giving you a reason to watch Fox), while Fox hardly mentions anyone from MSNBC.
It's as if MSNBC is actually selling Fox News by, er, talking about them to death - the death of MSNBC News if it doesn't alter its approach.
The other element fueling Fox News'ratings is its conservative leanings and a bit of a nod to white nationalists from time to time. Then there's those LA car chases..
Fox News is the only cable news network that's obsessed with these stupid car chases, but you know what, people watch them. Actually call each other to have friends flip the channel. I've seen this time after time at the gym, when a group of people will crowd around a TV watching a Fox News' car chase, always in LA.
Makes me wonder if they're staged. But whatever, it works.
For the third quarter of 2009, Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time, up two percent over 2008 which was a political primary year. That's more than CNN at 946,000 and down 30 percent over 2008, and MSNBC at 788,000 and down 10 percent over 2008 combined.
Here's the data from DocStat:
3Q '09 _LIVE+SD_ P2+ ranker -
What should CNN and MSNBC do? Well, for CNN, being an iReporter, I have an answer I told them while I was visiting and my video gives a clue:
The idea is to really emphasize the iReports that are sent in. People love to see themselves and the iReport was at its best when CNN was liberally integrating videos into its news format. CNN needs to up the ante there, and create a kind of current-tv-like web system and regular iReport shows.
That would do it. Well, that and putting Campbell Brown in a shorter skirt.
As for MSNBC, I'd include more of a web-based news presence and also copy what CNN's doing with iReport. For all of its liberal politics, MSNBC has an "old school" feel to it, that makes it down right boring at times. Taking out David Gregory and putting in Rachel Maddow for "Meet The Press on Prime Time" would be a kick-ass challenger for Bill O'Reilly.
The bottom line is CNN and MSNBC need to think out of the box, before its too late.
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