Fox News saw record viewership in February--profiting from its peak period of coronavirus denials and conspiracy theories

According to the Nielsen numbers in 2019, Fox News was number one with an average viewership 2.57 million daily, yet it was only 19^th in the 18-49 demographic, averaging about 250, 000 viewers a day. The average age of Fox News viewers is 65, and well over half of all its viewers are over 65. Now there are those who will point out that viewers of MSNBC and CNN are also of similar age groups, although not of similar demographic groups. According to Nielsen, MSNBC and CNN combined averaged 2.8 million viewers daily, barely more than Fox News, of which an average of 400,000 viewers were in the 18-49 age group. That means that the average daily viewership of those 50+ for Fox News and MSNBC/CNN were about the same.  

But there are flaws in any calculation that suggests any kind of “equivalency.” During the critical month of February of this year, Fox News achieved its highest ever viewership, averaging 3.5 million daily, while MSNBC and CNN remained at 2.8 million combined. Now, people will say that is “great” for Fox News, but is it “great” for the country? February was the month when Fox News was at its most vehement in claiming that the coronavirus “scare” was nothing but some liberal “scam” that was meant to damage Donald Trump. Even Tucker Carlson, who has taken “credit” for taking a different tact, seemed more motivated in making it a “racial” issue—except that instead of the usual blaming migrants from south of the border, it was the Chinese who were the “bogeymen.”

There are those who are now suggesting that the reporting of Fox News on the coronavirus issue at least into the beginning of March may have prompted a certain amount of indifference to the virus problem, perhaps even a belief that it wasn’t “real.” Could this belief have allowed the most vulnerable age group—60 or over—a false sense of “safety”? I am curious about whether the residents of the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington were “avid” Fox News watchers. That place is allegedly the “epicenter” of the coronavirus “pandemic” in the state, which kind of makes it the “epicenter” of the entire country.  A week ago, reports were that two-thirds of the residents were infected and 35 residents or those who come into contact with them had died. 48 of the staff and visitors were also reported to be infected.

Again, outside of  Carlson, everyone on Fox News until last week was claiming that virus was a liberal” scam meant to hurt Trump, and we can suspect that most of those residents were (given their age) likely watching a lot of Fox News, and they were being told that the coronavirus issue was “not a big deal.” Older people are the demographic most susceptible to the worst complications of the virus, and they were hearing this. Trump—who was getting his “news” from those claiming it was all a “liberal plot,”  has been playing “general” for the past week—after the “fake news” media and intelligence agencies have been since January been reporting on the looming disaster. The New York Times reported that nurses and staff at the Life Care Center were not properly “briefed” on the potential of a coronavirus outbreak, and when residents who seemed “fine” a few hours prior suddenly became ill,  they had no idea why—allowing the virus time to spread, and fast.

We can’t know to what extent people allowed their beliefs to be influenced by Fox News coverage of the coronavirus outbreak from early January to early March. We do know that polls showed that Fox News viewers were much less likely to believe the coronavirus issue was “real” than those who received their news from MSNBC and CNN. Trump, whose views were until March 11 obviously influenced by the naysayers, is still attacking even Fox News (since it has “come around”) for criticizing his bombastic, self-serving claims after the cat had been let out of the bag long ago. The fact that Trump allowed himself to be “led” by the fact and science-challenged Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and “Fox and Friends” for months on the virus issue proves nothing else if not that he is a real “fake-news” junkie, and the country is paying the price for it—as Fox News was raking in the profit while it was at it.