1. Roger Ailes of Fox News has decided to get tough with a particular cable provider, probably as only the first of many.
2. He's picked a really bad time to do that.
More below...
It seems that the Fox News contract with Cablevision is up for renewal and he wants more money, a lot more money. He also let it be known that he plans to continue making changes at the network claiming that he's focusing on the next ten years...Ailes wants Cablevision to increase [its] payment from 25 cents to one dollar per viewer -- twice the amount CNN receives -- or else. Cablevision is not promising anything beyond 50 cents, so the situation could get very interesting.
Ailes's logic is simple: Fox ratings are well above CNN's, and CNN currently gets about double the payment per subscriber that Fox gets.
That would seem sensible enough. Here's the problem, as any fan of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show knows quite well (because KO mentions it every chance he gets, bless his little pea-pickin' heart):
Fox News ratings are going down. Worse, the demographics where they're not so bad are among older viewers, and they're not the ones whom advertisers want to reach. From David Bauder's AP article (although it doesn't go into the details of the aging of Fox's viewers):
...the years of explosive growth have ended at Fox. Viewership over the first eight months of the year was down 5 percent compared to 2005, with a steeper 13 percent decline in prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research. For 12 straight months, Fox's prime-time audience has been smaller than the year before. Meanwhile, CNN viewership inched up 5 percent this year through August. On a typical day this year, Fox's audience is 845,000 while CNN's is 466,000.... The timing is inopportune, since Fox is about to negotiate new fees with cable and satellite providers to replace contracts agreed to when the network first started. As a startup, Fox accepted low fees from cable providers and believes its success made those deals a bargain. Now Fox wants them to pay up, and in some cases is asking providers to quadruple their payments.
... Some believe there's a correlation to the declining popularity of President Bush and concern about the Iraq war. "The rah-rah enthusiasm that was there in 2002, four years later has dissipated," Sorenson said.
Some of the bigger stories of the past year, such as Hurricane Katrina and the wars in the Middle East, played better to the newsgathering strengths of CNN, Heyward said.
(Of course, they've also helped to wake up a previously slumbering electorate, or so the polls would indicate. But that's definitely not news. Continuing from the AP story...)
[Keith] Olbermann's growing popularity -- and growing partisanship -- along with the response to Clinton's "Fox News Sunday" interview also indicate that Fox's foes have less fear about taking the network on.
While Ailes probably will shake down a number of cable providers, keeping his bilge flowing to the open-mouthed who already couldn't be budged off his channel with a blowtorch, there is the serious chance that a number will look at their bottom lines first and his scare tactics second -- and start slowly eroding Fox News's access to the masses. Where cable companies do cave in, they can and will use Fox as one of the chief reasons to wave at who complain when their rates go up. Even the most addicted Fox fans won't like having to pay more for it. (They don't want to pay higher cable rates any more than they want to pay their fair share of taxes.)
Again, from the AP article:
Fox News chief Roger Ailes... this week ...rode the elevator to the 22nd floor of News Corp.'s office tower for an 8:45 a.m. stroll through the network's ad sales department.Mr. Ailes? What are you doing up here?, someone wondered aloud.
"Taking attendance," the hard-charging motivator replied.
Message delivered...
Ailes also is up to old motivational tricks, including calling the occasional 5 a.m. meeting ("I think it's useful to wake people up and remind them of how they get their paycheck," he said). A large trade publication ad placed recently saying the network was looking for aggressive new producers was seen -- for good reason -- as being directed as much internally as at job seekers.
Regardless of how it comes out, it becomes clear that Fox not only is sinking, but knows it's sinking. The big, brave, bad-ass bully is starting to suck its thumb.
On September 25, Keith Olbermann spoke powerfully about how Bush's "free pass" is over. While we're not quite to the day when we can say the same about Ailes and Fox News, it is at least something we can realistically imagine, now. With enjoyment and hope.
© Kos Media, LLC
Site content may be used for any purpose without
explicit permission unless otherwise specified.
Privacy Policy
Powered by Scoop.
Permalink | 40 comments