Last week it was announced that the Rogers Cable subscribers in Ottawa would no longer get their PBS from rinky dink Watertown, NY anymore and would instead get it from Detroit, where most of our other major network feeds come from. I have two words for people.
WHO CARES?
Tell me the last time you actually watched PBS? It is Bill Moyer’s liberal playpen. Moyer should crawl back into the communist red hole that spawned him and hide his face in shame for what he has done to that network.
I am even more upset that I am hearing right wing or center right talk radio pick up the banner and wave it high that we need to support local TV stations. How about we support choice instead?
I am a Roger’s subscriber and I wanted Fox News Channel (181 on your Roger’s dial) and I had to subscribe to their “News” package which includes 5 other stations that I had no intention of ever watching and haven’t watched since I got them. Yet I have to pay the $4.99 for this one station. Today I inspected Roger’s pick and pay station options and all 5 of these stations are offered individually for $2.79 per channel if I just want the one. Guess which station in the “News” package was not available individually? You guessed right. The Fox News Channel.
So I surfed over to the Bell ExpressVu website and after a few minutes I noticed that the Fox News Channel was not available as a standalone either. It comes as part of their “News and Learning 2” theme package which includes 7 other stations and costs $8.00 per month. I found the Bell Pick and Pay options for single channel subscriptions and I could order every network in the “News and Learning 2” package individually for $2.50 each. All but ONE that is. Guess which one? Wow, you’re good. 2 for 2. It is the Fox News Channel.
This network is the number one rated cable news channel kicking CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and HLN to the ground. In fact, Fox regularly has the top ten individual ratings for shows in the Cable News World. Look at some of these numbers.
From April 2009, the top 11 shows were all Fox News Channel.
1. “The O’Reilly Factor” (Fox News): 3,498,000 total viewers
2. “Hannity” (Fox News): 2,566,000 total viewers
3. “Glenn Beck” (Fox News): 2,230,000 total viewers
4. “On the Record with Greta van Susteren” (Fox News): 2,173,000 total viewers
5. “Special Report with Bret Baier” (Fox News): 2,047,000 total viewers
6. “The Fox Report with Shepard Smith” (Fox News): 1,915,000 total viewers
7. “The O’Reilly Factor” (Fox News, repeat): 1,723,000 total viewers
8. “Your World with Neil Cavuto” (Fox News): 1,520,000 total viewers
9. “America’s Newsroom” (Fox News): 1,505,000 total viewers
10. “Studio B with Shepard Smith” (Fox News): 1,314,000 total viewers
11. “Happening Now” (Fox News): 1,247,000 total viewers
12. “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” (MSNBC): 1,237,000 total viewers
13. “The Live Desk” (Fox News): 1,210,000 total viewers
14. “Larry King Live” (CNN): 1,093,000 total viewers
15. “Anderson Cooper 360″ (CNN): 1,058,000 total viewers
16. “The Rachel Maddow Show” (MSNBC): 1,042,000 total viewers
17. “Situation Room” (CNN): 898,000 total viewers
18. “Lou Dobbs Tonight” (CNN): 826,000 total viewers
19. “Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull” (CNN): 786,000 total viewers
20. “CNN Newsroom” (CNN): 725,000 total viewers
When it comes to analyzing timeslots, to the right is a graphic taken from the Hot Air Pundit indicating ratings by timeslot. Note Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly (twice) kick some serious ass in their timeslots. Additionally, Fox News wins every slot from 5pm to Midnight by a significantly large margin, in most cases over all other news networks combined. How can Rogers and Bell include CNN in their premium cable packages, yet they continue to ignore Fox? This is a travesty in my opinion and it is another example of the viewing public getting Officially Screwed.
Forget PBS. I want my Fox News Channel!!