Slate has a fascinating piece about who watches news in a story whose headline is about Donahue’s demise on MSNBC. Turns out, that based on a Pew Research Center study, the plurality of viewer of TV news are self-identified conservatives (even those who watch CNN). This has interesting implications for the talk radio discussion that has been going on here, elsewhere in the Blogosphere, and in the mainline press.
A basic summary of the data:
The Pew poll found that 46.4 percent of regular Fox News Channel viewers self-identified to the pollsters as “conservative” or “very conservative,” and only 17.7 percent self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal,” which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody who’s viewed Fox. But the regular CNN watcher tilts right in almost the same proportions: 39.7 percent right versus 16.1 percent left. Similarly, at MSNBC, 40.4 percent of regular viewers self-identify on the right and only 15.8 percent on the left. (For those keeping score at home, here are the percentages of moderate viewers: Fox, 31.7; CNN, 37.7; and MSNBC, 37.9. Don’t know/refused to answer accounted for 6.5 percent.)
and in regards to broadcast news:
Regular evening-news viewers self-identify as conservatives, moderates, and liberals in numbers very close to those of cable network viewers (CBS: 40.7/37.1/12.9; NBC: 43.2/33.5/15.5; ABC: 41.9/36.7/15.8).
All very interesting. And, no doubt, will cause much debate as to the why.
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August 10th, 2024 at 10:25 am