At Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson has written a terrific in-depth article on how Roger Ailes built the Fox News Fear Factory. The title is, “The Fox News Fear Factory.” As part of that long article, Dickinson cites some interesting stats. The topic is “Who watches Fox News?” And here’s the answer:
Ailes knows exactly who is watching Fox News each day, and he is adept at playing to their darkest fears in the age of Obama. The network’s viewers are old, with a median age of 65: Ads cater to the immobile, the infirm and the incontinent, with appeals to join class action hip-replacement lawsuits, spots for products like Colon Flow and testimonials for the services of Liberator Medical (“Liberator gave me back the freedom I haven’t had since I started using catheters”). The audience is also almost exclusively white – only 1.38 percent of viewers are African-American. “Roger understands audiences,” says Rollins, the former Reagan consultant. “He knew how to target, which is what Fox News is all about.” The typical viewer of Hannity, to take the most stark example, is a pro-business (86 percent), Christian conservative (78 percent), Tea Party-backer (75 percent) with no college degree (66 percent), who is over age 50 (65 percent), supports the NRA (73 percent), doesn’t back gay rights (78 percent) and thinks government “does too much” (84 percent). “He’s got a niche audience and he’s programmed to it beautifully,” says a former News Corp. colleague. “He feeds them exactly what they want to hear.”
Dickenson’s conclusions is also astounding. Not too many years ago, conservative politicians believed that Fox News was a tool of the conservative politicians. That might have flipped. Now it appears that the conservative politicians are tools of Fox News. Democracy in action, some would say.
