Our friend Steve Krakauer at TVNewser notes that the Obama presidency has been good for Fox News Channel ratings. While we do post daily cable news TV ratings ourselves, and you are welcome to do your own trend analysis, I think our ongoing chart of O’Reilly Factor vs. Countdown with Keith Olbermann ratings is worth a thousand words.
O’Reilly Factor ratings are up sharply adding around a million viewers a night compared to mid-January, Countdown on the other hand has increased only slightly. For the record, I am not a fan of either of these guys, nor television news in general, but the trends are interesting and worth noting. Earlier, I thought that an Obama administration would only help Fox News ratings a bit, and I think that long term it’s likely to be the case, but in the short term I’d bet the folks at Fox News are chanting “Yes, We Can!”
The trend lines above are 20 day (4 week) moving averages. Note that on three nights, O’Reilly’s P2+ audience exceeded 5 million: 9/3 5.206m, 9/4 6.644m and 10/2 5.624m. Those numbers are included in the running average, but stretching the scale out to 7m to include just those 3 points compressed the rest of the data so much as to hurt the readability of the chart. Click the chart for a full-sized image.
Last Week’s Trend of O’Reilly vs. Olbermann TV Ratings:
For complete information on all cable news ratings check our daily cable news ratings posts.
Nielsen Cable Network Coverage Estimates (as of October, 2008)
CNN/HLN: 98.63 million HHs
CNBC: 97.13 million HHs
FNC: 94.82 million HHs
MSNBC: 93.00 million HHs
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
“Billo” has been beating Olbermann 3-1 in total viewers. Forgetting the political bent for a minute, O’Reilly’s show is just more entertaining.
“Countdown” has some interesting elements but it’s still 80% talking heads.
It would work much better as a 30 minute show.
O’Reilly certainly has his point of view but I find him to be a lot more balanced than Olbermann. The latter is really MSNBC’s answer to Sean Hannity.
Both are to the extreme and spend most of their program hammering the other side. I find this type of presentation incredibly annoying.
unlike CNN and MSNBC, Fox has no competetion. for cons it’s fox news or another night with a lamb. CNN, MSNBC, network nightly news, Jon Stewart and Colbert all have to compete for the same audience.
KO is nasty ,boring and impossible to watch for one minute . He makes his case by worrying about his talented competitors thereby demonstrating his lack of ability. Maybe sports for the fifth time in his career.
I suspect that “jon” has a fairly valid point, but I doubt that it offers a full exlanation. While O’Rielly is more to the right than much of the country, the issues he deals with (and even his positions) often find a sympathetic audience even among the “moderates”. Olbermann, on the other hand, has a much narrower base and even many dems find him farther to the left then they find comfort and while they were not at all pro-Bush, they are not filled with the hate that Olbermann has.
Herr Goebbels, I mean Herr Olbermann needs to calm down a bit, and start putting credible guests on. He better watch it, he doesn’t have any other networks available he can work for, except Lifetime and maybe LOGO.
Olbermann is a twit. Oreilly at least has opposing views on his show, while Ko doesn’t even let anybody on unless they are left wing bush hating, Obama kool-aide drinking bafoons. Oreilly has a better following than ko because he is truly more fair and balnced. Oreilly has sharpton, susan estritch, and many other lobs on his show every night. What true conservative has ok had on his program? He hasn’t, and won’t because he can’t back up his left wing babble with factual,logical, or causal arguments.
This just proves that American people are thirsty for the truth instead of the continuous pandering from the left.
Olbermann is scared to put anyone who opposes him on his show because he has no valid points in defense of his radical views. One of these days, KO and the rest of the loons at MSNBC are going to wake up and see why Fox constantly dominates in EVERYTHING. Either that, or MSNBC will be off the radar within ten years.
Nancy Grace is beating Olbyloon. Keith calls his show a “news cast” or “news hour”. What a joke. O’Reilly and Hannity are up front and call their shows news analysis and opinion – as if anyone believes that Countdown suddenly switches from news to opinion when the Special Comment starts. Does anybody really relish watching a pompous jerk spew personal insults and hatred under the guise of a “news cast”?
I think the trend it more about the crazy economic times we are in. People are scared that the goverment is going to do something over the top crazy to try to fix it. (like this spending bill). This is leading to people trying to stay informed and on top of the goverment more then they would have if we were just gliding along.
I am absolutely shocked we’re allowed to comment on this.
I feel arguments coming soon.
The O’Reilly Factor is my favorite show. I just don’t feel the same when I miss it. O’Reilly is the man!!
I wonder how O’Reilly’s show will be impacted as most of its audience dies off over the next decade.
(as in most of the viewers are in their 70s or above, not in some morbid manner)
Olbermann’s constant naming of his Fox News competitors as the “Worst Person in the World” exposes his egocentrism. It comes off as petty jealousy and makes him look like a creepy stalker.
Steven Colbert aptly described Olbermann as the type of person who would save his own urine. At one time Olbermann came off as witty and caustic, now he is merely pathetic and desperate.
I use to like FOX NEWS mainly Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity until I started doing factoids on what they were reporting.
Seems that they are nothing more than Liars For Hire and hacks for the extreme right wing neo cons and place more value on the $$$ than the good of the country.
Joseph Goebbels would be so proud…
All good points here except for revolutioninthehead. O’Reilly leads in the 25-54 age group and I’m 49. I’ll try to watch ko every once in a while but I still find myself reaching for the remote right quick. Maybe his face is too big in the screen or something- it’s disturbing. And Maddow’s cutesy and smug delivery doesn’t cover for her cherry-picking of the facts.
Check that. Max W is a moonbat in disguise and not a very good one. He used to like O’Reilly and Hannity and now they’re neo-cons? Hannity has always been Hannity and O’Reilly if anything has moved to the left some. Go back to your daily Kos, Max.
Of course he leads in 25-54, he has 3 million more viewers. That roughly 3/4 of the audience is over 54 says something.
I’m a big fan of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. I would watch them more often but I’m also a big fan of a number of other shows in prime time. Sorry KO, I’ve gotta watch Chuck on Mondays. I’ve gotta say though, I always find the political comments on these threads funny. The neo-cons are so insecure that they feel the need to constantly bash and attack those on the other side of the aisle. What a joke.
“The neo-cons are so insecure that they feel the need to constantly bash and attack those on the other side of the aisle.”
And yet calling them neo-cons is in no way bashing or attacking them? Gotcha.
The comments on this post are still relatively mild compared to the old O’Reilly vs. Olbermann posts.
Not only that, Vader….
Olbermann’s constant attacks and bashing of Fox personalities is “justified” I suppose and NOT s sign of insecurity???? LMAO
Watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann is much like a commuter speeding thru traffic slowing only for the occasional fender-bender. We surf from one relevant news broadcast to another, stopping only for a moment to glance at his car wreck of a show. KO has become the journalism equivalent to the interstate fender bender-much do about nothing. He simply slows our daily commute in search of trust worthy information. Keith needs to lighten up and stop pretending to be a newscaster and MSNBC needs to stop the bleeding. Anytime KO sits down in a “news” forum like the poltical debates the network cuts a credibility vein.
How loyal is KO’s ‘crazy niche’ audience? Well, If Howard Stern’s audience is any indication (and it is) we will see a huge drop off in his numbers as soon GWB leaves office. Howard’s audience left once Stern went to pay radio. He never recovered that audience and fell off the national stage. Same will happen to political light weights like Mr. Olbermann. Without Bush, KO will have no format. His ’special comments’ are still about folks in the Bush administration…lol. Take away GWB and all you you have is the angry man in the clown suit.
@revolutioninthehead, “roughly 3/4 of the audience is over 54?” You have no idea how many viewers of O’Reilly are over age 54, because those numbers are not published. You can state how many viewers are outside teh 25-54 age bracket, but that does not specify which ones are under age 25. Given the data we see, you can hypothesize that roughly 622,000 (about 16% of total) O’Reilly viewers are between ages 54 and 64, and Olberman gets about 228,000 of the 54-64 crowd (about 15% of his total). But that’s really all you can surmise from the data given. We have no idea how many viewers are over 64, or under 25.
If my rough math is close, 47.7% of Olberman’s viewers are in the oldest age group noted (35-64) in Thursday’s ratings breakdown. In the same Thursday data, 41.1% of O’Reilly viewers are in that older (35-64) demo. So which show skews older?
When will liberals figure it out…Liberalism doesn’t sell!
“MSNBC’s research claims that the median age for Mr. O’Reilly’s audience is 71, while Mr. Olbermann’s is 59. (Fox and CNN both report that the only figures they get for median age of shows with older audiences is “65 plus,” and that Mr. O’Reilly’s audience falls into that category.)”
True, median is not mean, but anyone that thinks any show on a channel like CNN or FOX News has a great audience under the age of 25 is deluding himself.
KO is done. He has plenty of experience in losing shows.Check his background in sports. But would any sane person put him in charge of the NEWS section of a failing operation.At least living at home with MOM will ease the financial pain a bit. Maybe, that is the root of his nasty So we should feel sorry for him and not disparage the poor man.
Rev-in-the-head. Are you using that new math where the is no wrong answer and you get an A for just trying? You, KO and Chris – 10 years and no more MSNBC – a good estimate.
matthews ratings suck I can’t figure out why he is as well known as he is. Most people are like ” Oh yeah i recognize him!” but they have never actually seen his show…
Olbermann, yeah I loved the Howard Stern comparison. He hit at the perfect time with the perfect jackass attitude people wanted because of their strong hate of GWB. Especially in the left.
However GWB is gone! What does he have now? Lost the Clinton voters, lost any shred of anyone centrist/right wing, all he has is the far left and that doesn’t sell very well to the public.
Personally, I believe the best show on cable news is… Morning Joe! No contest.
Bill is only ok, and Hannity is kinda nutty sometimes, though at least both of them allow guests who disagree with them.
Keith isn’t worth watching, because you never get the opposing viewpoint. From the little I have watched of Rachel’s show, she is as bad as Keith in that regard.
Keith and Rachel are both arrogant jerks. Rachel even cuts clips completely out of context to support her views… I mean more than everyone else does. She’s terrible.
I would pay money (as in Pay-Per-View) to see Olbermann debate Rush, Bill’O, or Hannity. Olbermann would get destroyed!!!
I refuse to watch Olberman or Hannity. Both are on the extreme end of the left and right and are frankly annoying. O’Reilly certainly leans to the right but at least trys to present both sides of an issue. Olberman and his former sidekick are full of hate will do anything to try and sell their view. I turned the Super Bowl pre=game show off when I saw Olberman. Unbelievable that NBC will allow him to appear on any show.
Sometimes I’ll watch Olbermann… if I feel like watching shit.
Glad to see the comments are turned back on.
Also, as I and others predicted O’reilly would start to pull away signifcantly in feb after the elections hype were past them.
And it is so. Keiths show was a one time thing, time to find some balance now on MSNBC.
As far as Hannitys new show, dont watch it cause i cant stand him. But at least he is willing to debate with someone who disagree with him. Keitho has never had anyone on his show that did not cowtow his way of thinking. He has always been a coward.
HOBO
Wow, its been a while since i been to this site. It appear Billo gets more viewers in the 25-54 group on his second viewing then keith gets in his initial show. The drubbing is worse then i thought, but I did expect it to be bad.
Soon, bill will have more in the 25-54 category then keith gets from all viewers. I guess hate has a limited shelf life.
I agree with people on Olbermann. I can’t stand the guy. You can’t help but yawn at the phony outrage acts by now. But… O’Reilly sucks too. They both suck in their own special way, really.
O’Reilly is the closest thing to Big Brother I’ve seen in TV. In the talking points memo section, he constantly speaks for the American people, and he literally tells you what to think! Of course, his arguments are often misleading (and on occasion outright lies), and the whole “fair and balanced” act makes you roll you eyes.
But this is not the bad stuff. It’s not good, but it’s quite bearable. Nobody buys the fair and balanced act by now, and you shouldn’t get your news from this sort of show anyway. It’s ok to have a bias in an opinion show. Bill has a great sense of humor and can be very entertaining. And he often invites, to his credit, opposing views.
My big complaint is, he NEVER invites the right people to the show. I really don’t care so much about lack of bias as I do about quality of guests. And this is the Factor fatal flaw. We have been in the economic crisis for 4 months now, and you haven’t seen any top economist in his show. I didn’t catch a single one. Come on Bill, feel free to invite the modern version of Milton Friedman, as long as it is someone who knows what he is talking about, and not some embarrassingly ignorant (albeit very confident) “analysts” like Dick Morris or Laura Ingraham. The same applies to other topics. Bill simply won’t bring in any experts or credible people to the show. So you get fed the same boring cliched, uninformed platitudes, and you never learn anything. Except, perhaps, with Megyn Kelly. With no spectacular credentials, she is interesting because she is actually familiar with the law.
So, I’m going with Rachel Maddow. She is biased. She is smug. She obviously thinks she’s funnier than she really is. But she also talks with Paul Krugman to discuss economy, and with Pat Robertson for politics, and with Glenn Greenwald for constitutional law. She gets the best guys. Plus, she makes a nice effort to present the big picture, however biased it might be.
Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent right-wing show to this. I would watch it.
Speck:
I’d rather see Rachel Maddow “cherry pick the facts” (a dubious, if not unverifiable charge) than Billo plow them under. I, among others, peek in on the Factor (which may further skew the share in Bill’s favor) for the laughs. If I wanted facts from O’Reilly, he might do better to return to Inside Edition…
Fred