Recent headlines exclaiming “Cable News Ratings Soar,” about how there were 72.5 billion minutes of news consumption in 2016, made me cringe. Any time you start talking about
billions of minutes viewed, it’s a not-too-transparent attempt to hide the fact that average ratings are small.
This is relevant in light of Bill O’Reilly being fired
from Fox News under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations. “The O’Reilly Factor” has been positioned in the press as a ratings powerhouse. If cable news ratings were
soaring, Bill O’Reilly was leading the charge. The reality, however, is somewhat different from the headlines.
There is no question that O’Reilly has been key to Fox
News’s prime-time success, helping the network rise head and shoulders above the other cable news networks. But there is a reason why you seldom hear anything about his actual
ratings. They’re decent, but by no means great. O’Reilly’s live adult 18-49 rating in the Q4 (election season) was only 0.26. Among the key news demo of adults
25-54, it was just 0.40 – less than half a rating point.
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The lowest-rated regular prime-time series on CBS got three times as many viewers. Just for some additional
perspective, Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob” did better than “The O’Reilly Factor” among adults 18-49, and ION’s “Criminal Minds” reruns did just as
well among adults 25-54.
When I worked on the agency side, I tended to analyze audiences in terms of ratings. When I went to a cable network, they wanted me to talk only in terms of
impressions (400,000 impressions sounded a lot better and easier to sell than a 0.35 rating). There are many ways to make a relatively small number of viewers seem larger than it really is.
So how much will Bill O’Reilly’s departure actually hurt Fox News? Well, with so many advertisers pulling out of his show right before the upfront season gets underway, combined
with the network’s efforts to buy Sky News in the U.K.(where they might not look kindly on rumors of sexual harassment), the network didn’t have much choice here.
There was
also a danger that advertiser defections might spill over to other Fox News programs, particularly with the very visible protests heating up. But there is plenty of time to demonstrate
that Tucker Carlson (who improved on Megyn Kelly’s ratings when she left the network -- and her ratings were higher than O’Reilly’s) can hold his audience at 8 p.m., and
“The Five,” a panel discussion series that moves into the 9 p.m. slot, can do better than its competition.
Despite the overblown press accounts, the ratings bar isn’t
that high. And it’s not as if right-leaning news viewers will turn to other news outlets.
Even if ratings decline, if Fox News is still well ahead of CNN and MSNBC, it will
be just fine. Beating the competition is more important than the actual size of its ratings. And as long as no additional accusations aimed at other Fox News hosts or management emerge,
advertisers should eventually return to the fold.