Where did the Fox News audience go? Were they euthanized? Did they just leave town? Not pay the cable bill?
Again last week, Monday through Friday, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, former ratings stars of the Fox News fictional line up, perished in the ratings.
Triumphant once again at 9 and 10pm were Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC. On some nights, Maddow has opened a lead over Hannity over 1 million viewers.
On the face of it, this doesn’t make sense. The election is over, Biden is in office, Maddow and O’Donnell have nothing to rail against. Fox News, however, now sees its ideological enemy in power. You’d think their audience would be tuning in to hear how Biden stole the election and was now drinking the blood of babies.
But they’re not. The Fox News audience has either wised up or has just gone to bed early. But they’re not watching Hannity like they used to. On Friday night, Hannity pulled in 2.7 million viewers. But Maddow had 3.7 million. And the gap was wide like that every day last week. Tomorrow we’ll see how this week kicked off.
What’s next? The impeachment trial. MSNBC and CNN should benefit from huge viewership on that, while Fox either ignores the proceedings or tries to spin them.
