Next year will be an interesting time for the cable news networks with a new President assuming office. Particularly for The Fox News Channel who hasn't had a democrat to go after since Bill Clinton. They've now got the Grand Puba of democrats in Barack Obama, who Sean Hannity continues to reported at nausium that Barack Obama is a radical with ties to a domestic terrorist. We'll see if that idealogical bias will serve Fox News as well as it did during the Bush years. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet against it. In fact, during the 2008 primary and general election, the cliam that Fox News is the most watched program in cable news lost it's factualness when MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann unseated Fox News Channel's TheFactor with Bill O'Reilly several time in the ratings.
With the tanking ecomony and cable subscribers cancelling service to cut expenses wherever possible, Fox, MSNBC, and CNN will have to work even harder to keep viewers interested. Even befor the FCC mandate for television broadcast to switch from analog to digital, cable subsribers are finding out that with the picture quality of DTV and increased channel options, dumping pay cable service is becoming easier to give up. That extra $60 to $100 can be better allocated elsewhere. Since local broadcasters can split there single analog signals into multiple DTV signals, MSNBC would be well served to simalcast the MSNBC feed through their local NBC affiliates for free nationwide. In turn, FOX could do the same thing. I think that Fox is going to have a much bigger adversary in MSNBC in 2009 with the addition of Rachel Maddow following Countdown with Keith Olberman. I watch MSNBC and FOX exclusively, but for very different reasons. I was drawn to MSNBC by Tim Russert and stayed a loyal viewer because of Keith Olbermann. I was drawn to FOX by Bill O'Reilly because I remembered him from A Current Affair which was a program I liked when it was on. However, I was shocked after just one episode of The Factor.
I grew up on local news with news caster like Jess Marlow and Jerry Dunphy with his standard opening of "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, good evening." I see alot of what made Jerry Dunphy so widely respected by his viewers in Keith Olbermann and I'm telling you, they are the last of a dying breed. Fox news has become the not only the Jerry Springer version of cable news, but the Shady Acres for washed up has-beens like Brit Hume and Chris Wallace.
As for Bill O'Reilly who I liked from his A Current Affair program, he was a huge disappointment after watching just a few episodes on Fox. It was as if a light went on and now I could see thing more clearly. Sort of like when I found out that the green Kool-Aid that my Nana used to make to quite me down was actually an 80/20 mix of water and NyQuil. She had me half in the bag from the ages of 6 and 10 and I didn't even find out about it until I was 20, but I digress.
In a sick and twisted way, Bill O'Reilly has become my Carson because he makes me laugh when I really shouldn't. Like the way that Archie Bunker made millions laugh with his blind biggotry in the 1970's television show, All In The Family. It's not as if Archie Bunker and Bill O'Reilly go out of their way to be biggot's, they just know any better. For example, O'Reilly was once talking about having dinner at an "African American" owned restruant that had a "Predominately African American patronage" and he said that he was pleased when everyone was dressed nicely, not being loud or saying mother F this, and mother F that. I mean, come on! - Are you shittin' me with this? - My friends, you can't put lipstick on a comment like that and try to pretty it up after it leaves your mouth. If Bill O'Reilly was surprised that he could go to a black restraunt, see well dressed black people who weren't using foul language, what does that say about his general perception of African Americans? - Someone once posted a this riddle on another blog of mine. It went something like -
What's green, a mile long and has hundereds of asshole from one end to the other?
ANSWER: Bill O'Reilly and the O'Reilly clan marching in a St. Patricks Day Parade.
I was offended by it spacifically because of the word "clan" after O'Reilly's name. The person who posted it claimed that that wasn't what he meant and if it was, he would have spelled clan with a K. It made sence so in the spirit of being truely fair & balance, I left it unedited. Between Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, President Obama is a going to be tag teamed. I just think it will backfire like the relentless Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright ranting. We are headed in a new direction in this country and the outcome of the election is proof of that. Let the games begin!
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Colbert Report On 4th of July
5 COMMENTS:
If fox news has the most viewers, I wonder why Sean Hannity and the other weren't able to skew the election in McCains Favor like they did in 2004 with John Kerry. What was different this time?
Orlando,
Houston tx.
Orlando,
I think Hannity had become so fanatical over the issue, people became ammune to his rhetoric. Even when he got tired of telling his audience nite after nite about Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezco, he knew that is wasn't having an effect by Obama's poll numbers. So he switched it up into asking his guest why he shouldn't concerned about Obama's "ties" with that unrepentant terrorist. Then he would say "I've talked to alot of people and I think that most Americans are conecerned about this" when every mainstream pool had already determined that it wasn't as big of an issue as he was reporting. I think that between Sarah Palin not knowing shit from shinola and Hannity's Obsession with Obama that he actually helped some undecided voters decide for Obama.
Timothy
If you go back and look at the campaign from the primary season, through the conventions, and into the election, you will see that every candidate both Republican and Democrat had to shift the theme of their campaingn or change it all together after Obama shot them down like duck in a row. And amazingly he did this while sticking to the "CHANGE" message from start to finish. The nation was tired of Bush, Iraq, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Bush's ties to Ken Lay and the collapse of Enron, They were tired of Rumsfeld, and Alberto Gonzalez and the most disfunctional and corrupt Justice Department ever.
That's all that happened. The nation had had enough and at the convention, when Obama shouted "Enough!" so loud that you could hear it echo through that stadium, he won the election right then and there. The Republicans, Clinton, McCain could have just packed up there shit and went home at that moment because it was over.
That's what happened.
As far as Fox News Goes, there here to stay and not because the are the crusaders for truth and honesty, but because they are a fucking sideshow no different then Jerry Springer as was pointed out here on Chico Brisbane. Jerry Springer didn't stay on the air so long because it was a crappy show. He drew an audience because it was disfunctional and entertaining and people tuned in to see what woas going to happen today. How was O'Rielly going to go off on today? How many times would Hannity use the word Unrepentant Terrorist"
Does Fox have a loyal viewing audienece who see it as a serious source for news and information? You better beleieve they. If I were a racist against Blacks, am I going to watch a news channel who is in the tank for Obama, or neutral towards Obama. If I hate Mexicans am I gonna watch CNN or MSNBC? NO! - I'm gonna watch FOX where they put the minute men sitting along the border right up there with General Fucking Lee. Where that call republican guest "Real Americans" and other Liberal or Progressive.
I'n not so sure about Fox bashing Obama backfiring. That's what they do and they are very good at it. They just weren't good enough this time around.
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