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TV NEWS' LONG-LASTING
SPLIT INTO TWO CAMPS
'news and commentary' from Fox, MSNBC
Number 499, May 30, 2010
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By John Greenwald
On Oct. 7, 1996, television news split into two when the Fox News Channel first came into 10 million TV homes (as of last year, it reached 102 million households). Also in 1996, MSNBC became another cable news channel; more than 78 million homes receive it today.
Since then, TV news has evolved from a single approach to news telecasts -- let's call it "middle-of-the-road" -- to today's split approach.
On one side of this divide are the "middle-of-the-road" TV news outlets: the three broadcast networks, with their half-hour evening news programs, and, on cable, CNN, available 24/7. On the other side are what I think of as the "news and comment" cable news channels: Fox on the right and MSNBC on the left.
Some readers may object to my calling CNN et al as middle-of-the-road. It's all in the eye of the beholder, and I'll leave it at that. However, those readers now have places go -- Fox News and talk radio -- which have become powerful political and cultural forces.
This two-sided TV news set-up is good for viewers who want news relatively undusted by partisan attitudes or politics, and for viewers who want their news brightened with red or blue sparkles. While that split has only been around for fewer than 15 years, I believe it's a permanent part of TV news, at least for the next 20 -- unless America's great red, blue and purple divide changes.
Fox News has set the standard for this split from the get-go. Rupert Murdoch, the worldwide, multi-media gazillionaire, wanted a TV news outlet to offset what he felt was the liberal bias of CNN and the broadcast Big 3. With his cash and mentorship (he already was running a 24/7 cable/satellite news operation in Great Briton), he hired Roger Ailes, a long-time Republican operative with cable news experience on a forerunner of MSNBC (of all things) and CNBC, NBC's cable business channel.
Separate from his conservative views, Ailes is also a master showman. On Fox, stories are as short as possible. Its on-screen talent is good-looking. The women are young, usually blond, usually better than pretty, and with long necks and widely spaced cheekbones. I'm not as good reading male looks, but I assume Fox's male on-screen talent is equally attractive.
Extremely important is the appearance of Fox's TV screen itself. Think pinball machine. And not the old-fashioned mechanical kind but the new electronic kind, which are half pinball and half videogame. From American flags a'waving, to bright red "Breaking News" alerts for minor stories, to exploding logos attached to continuing stories, Fox's graphic designers never rest. The more fonts, the better. With Fox, every sentence feels like it ends with an exclamation point, deserved or not.
The total Fox package says Exciting! Exciting! Exciting!, no matter how dull the story behind the hyped-up razzmatazz. That alone attracts viewers. Fox's conservative slant is almost icing on the cake. (Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" takes special fun satirizing Fox's graphics. Too bad other cable news channel merely copy Fox's excesses.)
Whatever the reasons, politics or pizzazz, Fox has defined a market, fulfilled a need and has been number one in cable news ratings for 100 months in a row -- quite a record, especially in the slippery world TV news ratings. True, on any given day, during any particular hour, for any particular demographic group, Fox may slip behind MSNBC or CNN. But that 100-month is solid and sure to continue for months, if not years, to come.
Like MSNBC, Fox is not all one side all the time. Both channels intersperse their opionators with straight news coverage. But like MSNBC, Fox's key prime-time personalities set the tone: Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on Fox; Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.
But let's put Fox News and our new world of bifurcated TV news in perspective. First, middle-of-the-road news still dominates. Ratings for the Big 3 half-hours and CNN's combined are larger than Fox and MSNBC's combined, even though on occasion Fox beats CBS. These comparisons will always be dicey, as we're comparing broadcast TV to cable, which reaches about 25-30 percent fewer households.
Plus, things change. In April, CNN was up a bit, Beck was down, but Fox still dominated.
Long-term, Fox may have viewership and advertising problems. Its base of old, conservative white Republicans is slowly shrinking. And that base's children aren't as conservative, especially on issues like abortion and gay rights.
Fox News' clear embrace of the GOP agenda, and this year the Tea Party's, also narrows its growth possibilities, if not now then certainly in 10 years. In 20 years, it may suffer from the same loss of interest as Republicans when Latinos and other minorities grow in political and marketing power.
Over time, all successful businesses have to stop appealing to their customers and start appealing to their customers' children. This is especially true for the news and entertainment media.
Bifurcated TV news is a permanent change, I believe. But for Fox to keep its dominance on its side of the purple-red-blue divide, it must keep up with the marketplace, especially the kind advertisers like.
Readers can e-mail John Greenwald at johnedit@comcast.net.
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