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Fox News Set for Best Year Ever
Ratings soar with Dems in office
By Matt Cantor
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Posted Aug 17, 09 12:29 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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Conservatives may not have their preferred president, but they do have a preferred network: Fox News is on a roll, set for its best ratings year ever, the AP reports. Viewership is up 11% over last year—though the boom hasn’t come without controversy, with some critics suggesting that Fox, lead by Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, has helped charge, instead of just followed, the president's opponents. Ratings at CNN and MSNBC, meanwhile, are down.
“Fox is much more firmly established than it has ever been," says a former host of Fox's News Watch. "It has been in existence for 13 years. It knows its base. And it knows its base is bigger than CNN or MSNBC." "Our ratings are already soaring because we don't denigrate the protesters, the way a lot of other TV news organizations do," adds Bill O'Reilly. "They're dying. We're on fire."