mnradiofan said:
It's NOT up to me to assign value, like everyone else, I'm giving my opinion. And I'm not basing my opinion on politics. I'm not a leftist or a rightist, I land somewhere in the middle. For the record, I don't care for CNN or MSNBC either. But, when you're comparing prices, its hard to justify Fox News getting anywhere NEAR what ESPN or even Fox Sports get (also two channels I don't watch, yet pay for).
What I'm arguing is that it certainly costs USA (another network I don't watch much, actually) more in rights and production fees than it costs someone like Fox News. The argument that a network is popular and therefore deserves more carriage fees is itself absurd. If a network gets high ratings, then said network should be able to charge more for advertising. Comparing based soley on popularity, I can get CNN and HLN for less than I can get Fox News currently. Not only that, but USA, TNT, TBS, and Nick all have higher ratings than Fox News yet charge significantly less.
I am sorry, but your post belies a lack of understanding when it comes to how the marketplace works. For one thing, how can you possibly say that Fox News doesn't 'deserve' nearly what Fox Sports gets? Personally, I am amazed that FSN gets as much as it does with so many second-tier and lower sporting events that few care to watch. The only reason that they're picked up by some systems is that FOX negotiates a package deal and if you want the local FOX O&O, FOX News and other channels then you have to eat FSN.
As far as value and demand goes, Fox News is worth far more to any carrier and is in more demand than FSN ever will be. Also nonsense is the comment that FSN has higher costs than FOX News. Do you have any idea how expensive a 24/7 national news operation is to run? Their costs are MANY times higher than FSN's. As an aside, the way that Comcast gets screwed for providing FSN is probably why they have the FOX Movie Channel relegated to the sports tier. And why I don't get to see it.
Lastly, although USA and the others you mentioned tend to peak with higher ratings than any news channel, the viewership patterns are inconsistent. Again, your perception of costs is skewed because it's far cheaper to air reruns and select dramas produced by your corporate parent (as USA and TNT do) than it is to run a news network like FOX News. It's not even close. Eluding to the start of this paragraph, if your cable outlet dropped FNC, they would lose a LOT of subscribers. Just as they would if they dropped ESPN. If they dumped USA, TNT, etc., they'd lose some but not nearly as many.
This is a market-driven decision. FOX News has their market to themselves. The people who like that channel will demand that channel from their provider. Admittedly, losing a channel like TNT, TBS, USA, etc. would be bad for a service provider. But the economics of such channels is different than the economics of an ESPN or FOX News. They usually come as part of a much larger package and - once again - are much cheaper to operate.
If CNN or MSNBC had FNC's viewership numbers, they'd be trying to get more per subscriber too. FNC has the same things going for it that ESPN does. Also, let's not forget that they are bundling FOX Business Channel in the deal.
As for your comment about selling ads, that's actually a different issue - which is only partially related. This is about payment for carriage and not ad sales. There's a difference and there has been a difference for many years.
