O'Reilly's TV numbers
> Most radio call in shows have more listeners than O'Reilly
> has viewers. Numbers do not equal accuracy. That is the
> usual dismissal talking point given by O'Reilly fans - his
> words don't have to be held to account because he is popular
> with the over 50 crowd and drive numbers because of it.
O'Reilly's TV numbers are impressive at first glance. He's easily the most popular show on FNC, and likely on cable, in the "2-plus" (everyone watching, even more so than radio's 12-plus) numbers.
Narrow it down to 25-54, the so-called "money demo" for both TV and radio, and the picture is a bit different. O'Reilly drops a TON of viewers going down to 25-54.
His competitors, like Mr. Olbermann, also drop viewers from 2-plus to 25-54, as expected. But their drop is not nearly as precipitous as O'Reilly. He loses something like 80% of his audience by whittling down to 25-54, and most others lose only about 50%.
Even in his much lower 25-54 numbers, he's still beating Olbermann and company...perhaps by double. But the numbers are MUCH smaller for him in comparison to how much smaller they get for his competition.
Assuming there's not some groundswell of viewers 2-24 in O'Reilly's camp - a fair assumption because generally, cable news viewers are not under 25 - he's got an audience heavy with older folks.
FNC's only problem with that is...can they sell it and make money off of it? The others... can they attract the 25-54 audience enough to make money off of it?
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