See a Daily Caller article which looks at viewership across the cable news channels (Fox, MSNBC, CNN) recently. When the Mueller report summary came out of AG Barr’s office viewership went up at Fox and down at the other two. If you’ve been tracking, earlier in the year viewership at MSNBC was up.
Nobody seems to have connected these dots. When people like what the news is reporting they watch, and when they find it less self-affirming politically, they don’t.
Viewers of Fox lean right, tend to be Republican; those of MSNBC lean left, tend to be Democrats. In the anticiptation of the Mueller report, which MSNBC, CNN assured their Democrat viewers would eviscerate Trump and his people, Democrats spent a lot of time watching. Republicans ... not so much. There were periods when MSNBC actually led the cable news ratings.
When the reality of Mueller’s report became known, Democrats were disappointed in the findings and viewed less MSNBC and CNN. Republicans liked the news and viewed more Fox.
We have discovered a new political metric - comparative cable news ratings as an indicator for which party is winning the week. The mantra in local news is “bad news is good news, when it bleeds it leads.” In national news, the reverse seems true, viewers appear to reward good political news by watching, but avoid looking at bad political news.
I suppose this makes sense, winning sports teams fill their stadiums more than losing ones. Heads up, FiveThirtyEight, it’s a new metric to add to your predictive models, maybe even a prized leading indicator.
