Cross-posted at immizen.com.
Sure, overall State of the Union ratings from yesterday's address are down from last year, but we want to take a look at what is happening to Fox News.
Fox News ratings have been falling dramatically since Obama’s reelection as reported in Politico on Jan 30th. And yesterday, even though Faux News was the most watched cable news network in total viewers, that did not apply to younger viewers.
Compared to SOTU ratings from a year ago, Fox News was down 3% overall, 16% in the 25-54 age demographic, and 47% in the 18-49 demographic group with the biggest drop of all networks.
For Republicans, "47 percent" is the curse that keeps on giving.
It seems that Fox News remaining viewership consists of retirees and almost retirees, and while I know people over 54 who are super fit and maintain a healthy life style, I would not be surprised to discover that those people over 54 watching Fox News are of the unhealthy kind whose brains are accumulating brain plaques at an astonishing pace.
As for the reasons to why Fox News is losing viewership, politcususa.com has a nice analysis about this:
As the Republican Party’s demographic base has shrunk, Fox News has followed. The recent news that FNC (Fox News Channel) registered their lowest ratings with the 25-54 demographic in 12 years is not a surprise.
The article lists three reasons why Fox News is going under: (1) Fox News ran wild with anti-Obama rhetoric and conspiracy theories. As a result, many moderate people stopped watching Fox. (2) They were wrong about so many things, so blinded by their partisan mission that they even got the 2012 election completely wrong. And people took notice. (3) The open civil war between the Republican Party establishment and the tea party is not helping. Fox News employs both Karl Rove, the leader of the establishment push back, and several tea party darlings, like Mike Huckabee. Over the past year, they have been trying to distance themselves from the (Tea Party) monster that they helped create, but it’s been too late.
It would all have been different had Romney won the election! But he didn’t.
All of these problems at Fox News were caused by Obama’s reelection. If Romney had beaten Obama, Fox News would have been correct about the election. They would have had a Republican president to sell, and the warfare between the establishment and the tea party would have retreated underground.