FNC in an Obama World…
NPR’s David Folkenflik interviews FNC’s Bill Shine about FNC in the era of Obama…
Liberals may be ascendant around much of the nation — in control of both houses of Congress, a majority of governors’ mansions and, of course, the White House — but times could hardly be better at the Fox News Channel, the cable channel liberals love to hate.
“There were a couple of people who basically wrote about our demise come last November [and] December and were, I guess, rooting for us to go away,” said Bill Shine, senior vice president for programming at the Fox News Channel. “With this particular group of people in power right now, and the honeymoon they’ve had from other members of the media, does it make it a little bit easier for us to be the voice of opposition on some issues?”
Why, yes. Yes it does. Ratings estimates from Nielsen Media Research indicate audience levels are up significantly — to extremely high levels for cable news — making Fox News among the highest-rated of all basic cable channels. (MSNBC has had some of its best ratings in its existence since veering to the ideological left in prime time last year, but both it and CNN lag well behind.)
March 23, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Hannity is more fired up than ever, with 0bama in the White House.
And we can forget about any mandate that FNC may have given its hosts to go easy on 0bama – both Hannity and Glenn Beck have been after the news POTUS on every front. But of course he’s giving them lots of material, in how he is trying to change and grow virtually every aspect of government.
March 23, 2009 at 5:14 pm
“new” POTUS, not “news”.
March 23, 2009 at 6:52 pm
missy – Both Hannity and Beck were all over Obama before he was elected with the Bill Ayers nonsense and the “he’s a Marxist” hyperbole. I wouldn’t have expected a honeymoon period of any sort.
March 23, 2009 at 6:53 pm
As for Fox – being in the opposition is good for business.
March 23, 2009 at 8:34 pm
bushleaguer, that’s true, but I believe a few sites stated that FNCers were to go easy on him at first. But that certainly seems to not be the case.