RUSH: For the first time ever, Fox News has come in third place in the demo. I imagine all of you are now sophisticated and knowledgeable enough about media affairs to know what the demo. The demo is 25-54. That hasn\u2019t changed since who knows when. That demographic is considered to be the most important by the broadest spectrum of advertisers, because it is in that demographic that you have young people making up their minds about brands.<\/p>\n
Like what kind of beer that they\u2019re gonna be drinking the rest of their lives and that kind of thing. When you get up to the 54-, 50-year-old range, now you\u2019re talking about people with disposable income to spend on it. So that demo is the most sought after, advertising-wise. Therefore, broadcasters target it as well. Fox is finishing in third place now for the first time, I think, ever. And I\u2019m gonna tell you how this… It\u2019s gonna have impacts beyond what you would ordinarily conclude. It is going to have a serious impact on the kind of commentary you hear on Fox. I will explain in a moment.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: All right, Fox News plummeting now to third place — this is prime time, by the way, but it\u2019s gonna end up being throughout the day — in the demo 25-54. They still are winning in terms of total audience, which is cool. It\u2019s a bragging right. You got 25-54, then you got 55, what is it, 65, 55, 72 is the next demographic above 25-54, and it\u2019s a niche, and there are advertisers that spend money on that demographic. And Fox is solid there.<\/p>\n
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But it\u2019s 25-54 where the numbers get published. It\u2019s 25-54 demographic where the media gets to write that Fox is plummeting first time in, well, 17 years since Fox commenced in 1996. Now, how\u2019s it gonna manifest itself? Folks, it\u2019s gonna manifest in ways that you would never figure. And, by the way, a little addendum here. Much the reason for this, the ratings decline, I have to walk very gingerly here, but it is not that upsetting to corporate executives at Fox.<\/p>\n
Much of what\u2019s happening here is the result of purposeful inside the executive suite decisions. I don\u2019t want to go any further than that other than to say the reason is that there are purchase objectives, media property purchase objectives around the world that would be facilitated if Fox is not as combative and is not seen as conservative as it has been. So much of this is by design, sadly.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s how it\u2019s gonna manifest itself other than perhaps advertising revenue, which they think is gonna be a temporary loss. The wizards of smart engineering this think this is all temporary and they\u2019re gonna be able to put it back together. That\u2019s where they\u2019re taking a great risk, and I kind of disagree with them. They\u2019ve gotten rid of the people who made it. They\u2019ve gotten rid of the people who built it. They\u2019ve gotten rid of the people who knew how to and to fight off the competitors. They got nobody there that knows what they\u2019re doing anymore, in my humble opinion.<\/p>\n
Now, besides all of that, when Fox was ruling the roost, Fox was therefore the place to go. If you\u2019re a guest, if you\u2019re an analyst, if you\u2019re an author, if you are a commentator, if you try to get a commentator gig, many young conservatives, their career aspirations now are get a book deal and a Fox News gig and that\u2019s it, that\u2019s nirvana. Nothing about changing the course of history, nothing about furthering the cause. Just get some money and get some fame. And TV attracts all kinds of people with that objective.<\/p>\n
But when Fox was ruling the roost, everybody wanted to go there, despite what these liberals say about Fox this and Fox that. You will know as well as I do that many liberal Democrats, guests and otherwise, showed up on Fox all the time despite the things they were saying about it. Why? ‘Cause that\u2019s where the eyeballs were. CNN and MSNBC, zero. I mean, they had asterisks. They had so few viewers it made no sense to go there. It made sense to go to Fox.<\/p>\n
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And when you went to Fox — let\u2019s say you\u2019re Richard Clarke. Remember Richard Clarke and the Clinton administration, the counterterrorism division, who never, ever, wouldn\u2019t see any way to concluding that Clinton could have identified bin Laden before 9\/11 happened and all. Richard Clarke totally… (sigh) I\u2019m trying to be polite here, just totally in the bag for the Clintons and for the left and the Democrats in analyzing 9\/11 and bin Laden and so forth.<\/p>\n
When people like Richard Clarke, take your pick, when liberal or left leaning guests go on Fox, they know who the audience is. So they modify a little bit their opinions and what they say \u2019cause they want to be invited back, they want to continue to appear. Maybe some of them even want to get official analyst gigs, which can pay six figures a year.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re seen as a strategist, you\u2019ll see a name, Anastas Mikoyan, Democrat strategist, you think, wow, that person works for the Democrats. No, no, no. They\u2019re just some person off the street that\u2019s got an opinion and they label \u2019em as Democrat strategists. They may have never strategized with anybody officially. When you go on Fox, because Fox is number one and because of Fox\u2019s audience, you moderate your tone a little bit. You have it dictated by your desire to come back.<\/p>\n
With Fox no longer ruling the roost, these people will not have to pretend to take Fox seriously any longer. They will not have to acknowledge that Fox is credible as their reason for going on, and what\u2019s gonna happen is they\u2019re now gonna calculate, many of these people that MSNBC and CNN are the best places to go to get face time. And in that case, they will be back to their unbridled, extremist liberal worldview. And it\u2019s gonna get even worse.<\/p>\n
My point is as Fox diminishes in the ratings, the extreme liberalism and anti-American leftism is going to get louder, it is going to become more common, it\u2019s gonna be all over the place. Whereas those people on Fox had to modify a little, or if they didn\u2019t, they were challenged. Their worldview was challenged by a host or by another guest. And they had to explain it and justify it, which many of them couldn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
This is going to change the landscape in a lot of ways that people are not even seeing. And that\u2019s because they\u2019re not highly trained broadcast specialists like I am, who can see these things coming. But that\u2019s just something to keep an eye out for. Now, I\u2019m not saying Fox can\u2019t rebound or won\u2019t rebound, but they have aced out the management team that built the place. They have aced out executives who were there and helped the people who built it and thus had central roles in maintaining it and growing it.<\/p>\n
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And now people who for 20 years, 15 years have always been on the outside saying, “I can do better, I know better,” now it\u2019s their turn, and they are demonstrating that they may not really know what they\u2019re doing. We\u2019ll see. MSNBC and CNN are not gonna change. I mean, they\u2019re as incompetent as ever, but the difference, big difference in this equation is Fox.<\/p>\n
And I just want to warn you, you may already think that has happened even before the events of the past year. I mean, I\u2019ve heard people complaining to me that Fox isn\u2019t what it used to be for a long time. Haven\u2019t you? So just expect that to accelerate.<\/p>\n