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What is the Obama administration thinking? Fox is laughing all the way to the bank, setting October records and a pace for its most-watched year to date.
The No. 4 prime time network (after ESPN, TBS and USA) can thank the White House for opening up even more distance over other cable news operations. According to Nielsen estimates for Sept. 28-Oct. 25, Fox News averaged 2.16 million viewers in prime time – more than tripling the audience for MSNBC (702,000), CNN (655,000) or Headline News (514,000). Among adults 25-54, Fox’s 563,000 almost matched the other three combined: MSNBC, 235,000; CNN, 187,000; and HLN, 186,000.
Every cable news network was down compared to 2008 (CNN the most) and the run-up to a riveting presidential election. But compare October 2009 to October 2007. Fox grew its audience 59 percent total and 71 percent among adults 25-54.
October gave Bret Baier, Glenn Beck and Shepard Smith their best months this year.
Wrestling recession-proof: Live events World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) produced overseas help the company post a 69-percent increase in profits during the third quarter and encourage it to pursue creation of its own WWE-branded TV channel. Programming would combine original series and packages of its vast library of footage featuring its stable of grapplers. Ratings for its four weekly TV shows were up 23 percent. They generated $28 million in TV rights fees – up from $24 million the previous year.
Twit news: Gov. Jennifer Granholm ate Coney dogs in Detroit with Vice President Joe Biden at noon on Nov. 9. We needed to know that, didn’t we?
Granholm is one of 23 million monthly visitors to the social networking Web site Twitter, which allows users to create a profile and “tweet” messages of up to 140 characters. You know who doesn’t have a Twitter account? The state Department of Information Technology.
Whatever happened to Pat Conroy? It’s been 14 years since Dogwood Fine Arts Festival’s May 2000 visiting author released a novel. I just came across the August Southern Living featuring Charleston, where he sets his big new book, “South of Broad,” which follows 20 years in the life of Leo King.
Conroy has lived in Atlanta, Paris and Rome, but South Carolina is home. Thanks to his dad being a Marine Corps pilot, by the time the teen got to Beaufort for high school, he had moved 23 times. He still writes his books by hand because his dad wouldn’t let him take typing because “girls type” and sent Pat to The Citadel. “The gardens of Charleston were mysteries walled away in ivied jewel boxes emitting their special fragances over high walls,” he writes. An accompanying review states, “Seldom does such a hungrily awaited book meet expectations.”
J.C. Penney: The Plano, Texas, company will quit publishing its twice-yearly “big book” catalogs since so many customers shop online. That cuts 2010 paper use by 25 percent to 30 percent.
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: “Obama has little leverage over China, in part because the U.S. depends on the Chinese to finance the U.S. government’s growing debt, and because of the perception in China … that the U.S. is troubled and China is ascendant … China gave no evident ground on the points at issue.”
— McClatchy Newspapers on President Obama’s three-day China visit as part of his four-nation Asia tour that concluded Nov. 19 in South Korea. How’d it go otherwise? Conservative commentators clobbered him for bowing to Japan’s Emperor Akihito – “groveling.” At least he didn’t throw up on him. A Chinese-owned solar-panel maker, meanwhile, is building its U.S. headquarters and a manufacturing plant in the Phoenix area for production by the third quarter of 2010.
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“Americans don’t want to shoulder the cost of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. They think the rich should pay for it.”
— Associated Press poll
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“You can’t blame this one on McDonald’s: Researchers have found signs of heart disease in 3,500-year-old mummies.”
— Associated Press
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Mark Burnett: The Producers Guild of America selects him to receive its Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television Jan. 24 – the first time the trophy goes to a reality programming producer. Burnett has produced more than 1,100 hours of programming, including “Survivor” for CBS.
Good argument for term limits: Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., Congress’ longest-serving member at 56 years, 10 months and 16 days – 20,774 days, according to the Los Angeles Times -also turns 92. The former Klansman entered the House on Jan. 3, 1953, and has cast 18,585 votes.
Charlene Lugar, 76, wife of U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, has been charged with drunken driving and hit-and-run after striking a parked car in Fairfax County, Va., Nov. 18. Police stopped her vehicle after seeing smoke coming from the hood.
Pirates back in the news: And why not? Spain Nov. 17 paid a $3.3 million ransom for a trawler and 36 crew members. Expect more attacks.
AL Cy Young Award: Kansas City Royals ace Zack Greinke, with just 16 wins, but a major-league low 2.16 ERA, beats out Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners, 19-5 with a 2.49 ERA. Detroit’s Justin Verlander finished third.
$3 million: What Los Angeles spent on Michael Jackson’s funeral.
First H1N1 flu vaccine was in short supply, now it’s pumpkin pie: Nestle Baking warned of a shortage of canned Libby’s Pumpkin because heavy Illinois harvest rains prevented growers from picking the entire crop. Nestle even added acreage this year because poor weather depleted the 2008 crop. Historic amounts of rain in Atlanta were also blamed for the national shortage of Kellogg Co. Eggo frozen waffles because production was interrupted at two of the four plants which make them.
John Eby is Daily News managing editor. E-mail him at john.eby @leaderpub.com.
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In case Mr. Eby hadn’t noticed, Fox news has increased its viewership in part by telling the truth, rather than just making stuff up. But of course who would remember Dan Rather using fabricated documents about GW Bush? Their news operations actually even reports news that one would never see on the major networks or on the other news networks. Beck and O’Rielly are more believable than are Olberman and Maddow, and carry fewer biases than do the other major outlets. Mr. Eby also must realize that HIS chosen field of “journalism” has taken its share of hits lately, as newspapers all over the country are having financial troubles, as they seem reticent to print anything other than what fits into the political spectrums of the editors and publishers. (See New York Times)
No in fact the Courts found the original documents were authentic, BUT had been scanned by a tabletop page
scanner.
then printed out by a computer ink-jet printer.
the Computer was not setup for the proper font that
the Original was setup in.
thus the stink.
it was not the Documents that Mr. rather was found liablous
over , but an off the cuff statement made in earshot of
a New york post reporter, that were found tobe liablous.