For years, Fox News has proudly bragged that when it comes to cable news, they own the prime time hours between 8 and 11 p.m. Their schedule of Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly (who recently left for NBC News), Sean Hannity consistently won the evening ratings war, and the ad revenue flowed into Rupert Murdoch’s pockets.
But now, with O’Reilly losing advertisers due to a sexual harassment scandal and a shifting demographic mix to the evening news audience, Fox is on the ropes. And a big part of the reason Fox is staggering to remain relevant is due to Rachel Maddow’s excellent coverage of the growing Trump-Russia investigation.
DailyKos recently took a closer look at exactly the impact Maddow is having on Fox News and came away with some heartening information for those who are sick and tired of the propaganda machine at Fox:
“For the past several weeks Rachel Maddow has been enjoying record ratings for her MSNBC program. Not only that, in the Key 25-to-54 demographic, Maddow is beating her direct Fox News competition, Tucker Carlson. The surge in viewers can be attributed to the “gift” of endless atrocities and absurdities courtesy of Donald Trump & Company.”
Things have gotten so desperate at Fox that the network has now taken to attacking Maddow directly, hoping they can knock some of the luster off her surging ratings:
“As a result of the program’s accelerating success, Fox News is exhibiting signs of anxiety and desperation. This week Fox News lashed out to criticize Maddow by featuring an analysis of her coverage published by The Intercept. Fox’s headline complained “Report Calls Out Just How Much Time MSNBC’s Maddow Spends on Trump & Russia.”
Fox News is also terrified by the fact that Maddow’s laser-like focus on the Trump-Russia story is harming Trump, whom the network is desperate to protect:
“In addition to beating Fox in the ratings she’s bringing attention to the most damaging scandal of the Trump administration. No wonder Fox is worried. It’s bad enough to be losing to a liberal network, but they’re also failing to protect their boss in the White House. A boss who regards the whole Russia thing as fake news.”
For her part, Maddow says viewers want to know the truth about what happened in the 2016 election:
“We’ve put a lot of effort into the Russia scandal and I don’t regret that, and I intend to be as aggressive as I possibly can on that story because here is a scandal that is of transcendent, historic importance and is existentially about whether or not this presidency should exist or whether it is the product of a crime.”
And if Fox and Trump don’t like it, that must mean Maddow is on the right track.
Featured Image Via MSNBC Screengrab
