I just read that after the election, MSNBC viewership declined by a whopping 50%, CNN declined by 32, and Fox has seen a 41% increase. That seems staggering. I can understand a drop in viewership of news channels after the election but who the hell goes from watching MSNBC to Fox News? Anyone have any insight or more info on this?
Probably no one is actually switching. All of those networks have viewership that is only a small fraction of the U.S. population. A gain in one network’s viewership is very likely not coming directly from the former viewers of another network.
Liberal viewers who were highly engaged in political news pre-election are now dispirited and scared, and many have tuned out of what they were watching (e.g., MSNBC or CNN). Meanwhile, Trump supporters are energized and engaged, and are tuning in to hear the “good news” about what Trump is going to do.
Edit: Even with that big bump, Fox News’ average prime-time viewership is still only 3.2 million viewers, as per the article below. That’s less than 1% of the total U.S. population, and only about 1.2% of the adult population.
What others said. Nobody on the losing team likes to watch the post-election coverage, whereas fans of the winning team want to soak in it as much as possible.
I’ve wondered about this.
I’ve tuned out CNN. Never would I watch Fox, tho’.
My reason is I’ve lost faith in media.
I think they focused way too much their valuable air space saying Trumps name and showing his face.
They showed polls, had their own.
All the while showing how Trump was all these horrible things.
Had careless, if few, Trump supporters who were just up on the latest Trump crap and spouted nonsense that made me believe Trump has this level of stupidness in his campaign and everyone will see it.
I feel like CNN lied to me. Had the cromulent, teary eyed bobble heads. They couldn’t see past the noses on their faces.
I ran right to CNN, it was my safe place. I sucked up every word Anderson, Wolf, Kaitlin, Erin and the others said. I’m not surprised they lost viewers.
Well, I was the real fool.
Read it where?
What’s the baseline? People may have generally been watching the news more in the run up to the election and this is just a typical post-election slump for MSNBC and CNN. Fox may be the exception because its audience likes seeing Trump on the news.
The link I added to post #2 has those numbers. But, yeah, @KidCharlemagne , when you start a thread, based on you seeing some information, it’s really helpful to include a link to an article with that information.
The article to which I linked says that the numbers are based on viewership from the day after election day to “now,” compared to the rest of 2024 (i.e., from the start of the year to election day).
I think there’s something to this. Over the past couple of decades, a lot of Americans have increasingly been following politics in the same way that they follow sports.
If you’re a sports fan, and your team is playing in a big, important game (i.e., the playoffs, the Super Bowl, etc.), and they win, you’ll want to keep that happiness going: you’ll be watching all of the postgame coverage, reading up on how your team won, buying the commemorative magazine and t-shirt, etc. But, if your team loses, you have no desire to relive that (or to watch the other team’s fans celebrating), and you’re probably going to tune out of any postgame coverage.
i would stream cnn/msnbc at the office and have it as back round at home if i wasn’t watching anything else.
i haven’t been able to watch the news since about 6 am nov. 6th. i just can’t deal with what will happen. it took about a week for the nausea to subside.
i will scan headlines on newspapers and click on the article if i need more info.
i don’t need the stress test of all the people he wants to put in power.
I paid attention to the Mariners a whole lot more before the all-star break than after.
Well, I am still listening religiously to Rachel Maddow (admittedly the podcast since we don’t have cable). I think she is doing a great job…but I guess I could understand how people could find it pretty depressing and want to just tune it out, at least for a while.
I used to watch MSNBC every night. I still have the channel. Watch a bit or Maddow and most of O’Donnel. But there is really nothing to gather here, until January. Or even the electoral count. I can get all the information readin the net. The legal experts on MSNBC were super. No need for some time now. Trump/ (Vance if he dies) will run into some legal problems.
The others nailed it. I had to lay off news for a week just as I did in 2016. Just like I watch Yankee highlights when they win but not when they lose.
I can’t even watch Nicole Wallace and she was a favorite. I’m tuning out as much as possible. If something happens, I’ll hear about it on my local news, every ten minutes. If something really important happens that requires my attention, I’ll tune back in.
I would never choose fox.
I was traveling for a week and a half immediately following the election, and I doubt I’ve gone that long without turning on a TV set in my entire adult life. Since I got home, I haven’t switched it on once to see actual TV (just streaming). MSNBC used to be my background noise as I get ready for work and I’d usually watch some in the evening. Not only can I not watch them pick apart the next four years of shittiness, once I heard about Joe and Mika going to Mar-a-Lardo and bending the knee, screw 'em. I’m out.
But, as above, I didn’t switch to any other networks. I won’t touch Fox with a hundred-foot pole, and I deliberately chose a package with my TV provider that doesn’t include CNN.
I found Joe Scarborough unwatchable for many years. I usually watched cnn until 3pm and then switched to msnbc at 2 or 3 pm.