Fox News, the cable news giant that is loathed by the Left, topped the television ratings -- all of them -- in the first two months of summer.
Fox News is accustomed to crushing cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC in the ratings but in June and July of 2020, as more people were sheltered in place and news was at a premium, it beat network news, comedies, dramas, and sports.
The "pro-Trump" lineup of Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity beat all other networks during the prime-time hours of 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. in June and July, The New York Times unhappily reported. That narrow nightly slot is a "significant slice of TV real estate," the Times explained, and the cable network beat its rivals as well as the "Big Three" broadcasters that air in more households and offer more programming.
Scott Whitlock of Media Research Center says there should be a lesson for the cable news competition but he predicts they will miss the point.
“I think it really shows,” he observes, “the power of liberal media bias.”
WhitlockFox News is mocked and hated by the Left for its conservative bias that gives a daily platform to Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and ratings-busting Tucker Carlson. But the cable news channel also gives air time to liberals such as the venerable Juan Williams, talk show host Leslie Marshall, Obama administration staffer Marie Harf, and even debate question-stealer Donna Brazile.
Over at MSNBC, meanwhile, that cable news outlet has signed up Republicans such as pundit Michael Steele and show host Nicolle Wallace (pictured at right), and Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. Yet all of them are dependable “Never Trumpers” who mock and malign President Trump and the Republican Party on a daily basis while claiming they are conservatives.
If the other media outlets were attempting to be successful businesses and not just ideological outlets, Whitlock tells OneNewsNow, viewers would watch them mirror Fox News.
“And we don’t,” he says.