Their networks would seem to disagree. From my limited knowledge of the TV business, raw ratings aren’t particularly important - it’s about how you do with critical demographics and how much your show takes in vs. how much it costs to make. I suspect all of these blowhards are doing fine by that score. I suspect Fox News is also on more sets than MSNBC, but I don’t know.
I love it when the other side points out that their puffed-up paranoid hatemongers have larger followings than ours as if that represents some sort of moral victory.
(This is presuming for argument’s sake that Olbermann and Matthews are equivalent to Beck and O’Reilly in terms of puffed-up paranoid hatemongering, which is quite a stretch.)
And no, Clothahump, you can’t hand-wave away every embarrassing thing your guy says as “sarcasm” when there’s no hint of sarcasm in it. What makes the clip posted by madmonk28 is that Beck is discouraging acts of terrorism not because they’re morally reprehensible, but because they the government and so-called mainstream media might perniciously use those acts to slander the cause and the good name of Fox!
Olbermann beats O’Reilly in the demographics that matter, by the way. Fox’s audience (which are still paltry compared to the broadcast networks) is mostly old people. They scare easy, and they respond well to to the xenophobia, racism, homophobia and armband religionism that Fox News sells.
Another point to consider with respect to ratings is that MSNBC and CNN are competing for the same demographic, while Fox News has a largely separate demographic that only they cater to. So it might not be surprising that the Fox shows draw a larger viewership, but it might be more meaningful to combine the numbers for MSNBC and CNN.
For that matter, there are also commentators on networks other than the ones dedicated to news. Jon Stewart’s job is fundamentally the same as Beck’s or Olbermann’s… How do his ratings compare?
God damn it! Does Fox News not put transcripts of their shows on their site because that would make it too easy to quote the really fucked up stuff that gets said routinely on that network? I’m trying to find an episode of Fox n Friends where Beck was going (particularly) crazy on some rant about Indians. It was pretty repulsive. So Glenn Beck goes on racist diatribes… What else is new?
From India. Somehow India came up, and this prompted a rant something akin to, “Pfft, fuck India and fuck Indians, the bunch of uncultivated, unwashed morons living in their own filth in unwashed-moronville.” I thought to myself, Did he really just say that? But then again, this is the same man who demanded Keith Ellison (who is Muslim) prove to Beck’s audience on the spot that he’s not a terrorist.
What my previous post should have said was: Can someone help me find a place on Fox News’s website where show transcripts are? Specifically, Fox & Friends? Is there no archive or anything?
How long has Beck been this crazy? I’ve got to admit I avoid cable news and don’t know much about the guy. I had a [Mormon] boss last year who acted really level-headed and absolutely adored Glenn Beck, but I always suspected he was a little more out there than he let on.
Did you read your own link? IBD spun those quotes like crazy. Then again IBD is the same paper that editorialized that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he was subjected to UK health care.
