Why I support media criticism on DU

[Sympthsical]

13. The average person is not watching at all.

People here consume a great deal of cable news and other media, because the people who congregate here are by and large political junkies in an older demographic. Staring at political media all day is just kind of what a lot of people here seem to do.

If you look at cable news ratings, no one's really watching. I think the highest ratings right now is 2-3 million in prime time. And it's Fox, as it ever is. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I watch ASMR artists on YouTube with higher viewership than a lot of these cable news shows. And those are channels where people are actively trying to fall asleep.

For October:

In total day, Fox News averaged 1.36 million, down 8%, followed by MSNBC with 895,000, up 19%, and CNN with 600,000, an increase of 12%. In the adults 25-54 demo, Fox News averaged 174,000, down 15%, while CNN posted 124,000, up 17%, and MSNBC was at 98,000, up 23%.

Check out those 25-54 demographics. That's brutal when we've 340 million people bouncing around this country. 98,000 viewers is a podcast about bacon recipes. Actually, no. The bacon recipes would get better numbers.

The real problem, IMO, is how insular the media are. It's an entire industry where politicians, lobbyists, and media figures all talk at one another (and oftentimes pay one another), and echo what the other is talking about. They create a little system of repetition amongst themselves. And, of course, we political junkies notice it. A lot of the time when we complain about what "the media" are doing, we're referring to this vanishingly small group of people who are just jabbering at each other all day. And then we (and our opponents) spread around what this tiny group of people are saying to other political sites.

But they don't have a reach if we don't give them a reach. The problem is, we're addicted to it and spread it around. It goes back to my first point. I would have zero idea what is going on with cable news channels that garner ratings similar to live-streaming an ant farm if people didn't make it their second job to tell me all about it.