Tucker Carlson: Bigger than NBC's "Today"

 

America's Sweetheart

Show                                                 Network                    Audience (mil., 7/15/21)

1. Tucker Carlson Tonight                  FOX                              3,127
2. Hannity                                              FOX                              2,751
3. The Five                                             FOX                             2,416
4. Rachel Maddow Show                    MSNBC                       2,358                                         
5. Ingraham Angle                               FOX                              1,993   

Source: AdWeek: TV Newser

"Tucker Carlson Tonight" remains atop the cable news dailies. But get this. The "Today Show," the home of Dave Garroway, Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters, Jane Pauley, Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric ("America’s Sweetheart"), Matt Lauer, and (still) Savannah Guthrie -- America's breakfast companion for generations and the place where the nation's news day began -- sank to 2.9 million viewers during the week of July 12-16, the first time its audience registered below 3 million since TV ratings became public in 1991.

According to one TV insider, celebrities long ago stopped seeing "Today" as a way to promote themselves. The show lacks its one-time "cultural relevancy," and rarely makes news as a result.

Tucker does make news, with the numbers to show it.

Comments

  1. SamJuly 27, 2021 at 1:49 PM

    One could make an erroneous assumption that more people are watching a conservative talk show rather than a liberal talk show. However, all 3 "mainstream" media as well as the 2 cable networks are all liberal biased stations. Therefore, one would need to combine those 5 stations and compare it to one Fox News to get a clearer picture of how many people are watching a conservative vs. liberal slanted news.

    The other issue I'd like to bring up is how many people actually watch all 6 news stations compared to the actual number of voters. I would guess the percentage is extremely small. In other words, Americans are more concerned about putting food on the table, paying for utilities, cell phones, etc than they are about who started the insurrection, who's behind BLM, is climate change real, etc. Congress needs to do some soul searching (and voters need to do the same at elections) on what's really important in America. None of the topics CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, NBC are talking about is important. For example, Covid is extremely important but these stations talk about it in terms of who's responsible, who's telling the truth, let's take down the other side with this issue. But Americans look at Covid in terms of when can I go back to work, why don't they clean my hotel room everyday, I gotta make sure my kids have facemasks at school and I can't get to the store....

    Yes, Tucker Carlson wins his time slot but I wish Tucker would stop playing to his audience (I know, it sells) and the other stations would do the same and talk about news as it relates to me. Walter Cronkite use to care about me. Today's "journalists" don't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. GFoxHawaiiAugust 7, 2021 at 7:09 PM

      Sam, thank you for your detailed response. It's true that people no longer gravitate to to the major news networks for their news. The days of Cronkite, Jennings, and Huntley-Brinkley are gone. That said, comparing 22-minute nightly CBS/ABC/NBC news (plus commercials) to the 24-hour cable news networks is "apples to oranges." People have many, many news choices. And within cable, at least on FOX, there is a further split between news, such as "Special Report with Bret Baier," and the opinion shows that surround him. And yes, Carlson and his opposites do "play to their audiences," as, unfortunately, does even the New York Times in our currently hyper-polarized world.

      On "apples to apples," I will gather more data, though we know MSNBC + CNN combined outdraw FOX alone. By how much? Let's find out. And by the way, Carlson doesn't just win his "time slot." He and/or Hannity not only led all cable news shows in ANY time slot (see chart above), they would also outdraw all other regular cable shows -- news or non-news -- when I last could see the data ("Drudge" stopped running the full TV numbers last Spring).

      Delete

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