Yes, I don't know what it means but fox has most of the best rated shows. That's why I think its nonsense for democrats to refuse to go on fox news. It was good to shut them out of the debates but to think they can totally stop appearing there is foolish. They need to get the message out to the viewers there even if its risky.

My theory is that Fox News gets viewers in the same way Gerry Springer gets viewers.

It is the packaging more than the content. I know fairly moderate republicans who watch Fox as more of a habit than anything else. They mostly agree that the slant is obvious, but can filter it because they like the "show" aspect of the presentation. It's the same reason the entertainment network does so well.

I thought everyone knew that.

Fox has a great business model. In the days when CNN was the only 24 hour news channel, and they played the same stuff over and over and over, Murdoch was smart enough to examine the market (people who actually watched the same news over and over and over). He saw that it tended to be an older audience, and leaned conservative.

So he designed his channel around that model. I mean, that's not to say that the guy isn't a conservative bastard, but really it's just business. Republicans in office are good for his business.

And that's the problem. When news becomes "just business" its a lot easier for business interests to go unchallenged, and for "unpopular" news not to get covered, and for costs to get cut (less international bureaus, less original reporting and more wire stories, etc).

Then, it becomes hell of a lot easier to end up in dumbass wars, pollute the hell out of the planet, etc.

But its not just Fox anymore. CNN is just as bad. MSNBC is turning into a "boutique" channel for geeks like us.

So the way it evolves is that we tune into news that suits our worldview and don't let anything else in. That might be one reason that a lot of people don't know how popular Fox really is. It just doesn't enter into their worldview at all.