Source: Canva/Fox News
TV networks have to make their money off of advertising—or so you may think. Fox News ad revenue has declined sharply, but they still make plenty of money directly from television viewers.
Would you like to know how they do it? Would you like to stop paying Fox News?
Angelo Carusone, president of the progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America (MMA), is on Twitter to deliver a Master Class on how Fox is making money from you…even if you aren’t a viewer.
Source: Pixabay
The network has been searching for new advertisers ever since protesters began to demonstrate outside of Fox and boycott the brands which advertised on the network.
1/ I want to share a bit about Fox News, advertisers, revenue and accountability.
Let me first start by saying that, Fox News is actually suffering quite severely on the advertiser front. (The next chart will illustrate just how badly)…
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: Screenshot Youtube
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” lost dozens of advertisers in 2019. Angelo provides us with a chart showing the drop, including some key factors, like when Carlson opened his show by saying immigration makes America “dirtier.”
2/ This is the number of paid ads on Tucker’s show. As you can see this chart shows the average number of *paid* commercials per show. It dropped off quite severely in 2019. It *still* hasn’t recovered.
So what’s this mean in terms of dollars? pic.twitter.com/0DFq4RsEkX
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: Canva
There are still commercial breaks on Tucker’s show, but large parts of these breaks are eaten up by non-paid content, like PSAs or Fox in-house commercials.
3/ Well: In 2017, Tucker’s show generated about $100M in advertising revenue for Fox News. If you took all of the ad revenue that Tucker’s show generated in 2018 and 2019, the combined amount is less than what Tucker’s show earned in 2017 alone. It’s easily a 75-80M loss.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Screenshot/YouTube
Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have also lost advertisers to boycotts, plus Hannity’s show may lose revenue because of being regularly beaten in the Neilsen ratings by The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.
4/ And, Tucker’s show is *not* only Fox News show that experienced big dips in number of paid commercials and revenue. Fox News lost…a ton of advertising revenue.
That problem got even worse when they failed to meet their sales projections at their upfront event last year.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: Canva
Angelo Carusone says that Fox could survive on zero income from advertising because Fox cheats the system to make everyone who watches TV pay them directly.
5/ So, how is that Fox News could lose all of that advertising revenue and still not be forced to make major changes.
Well, surprise surprise, Fox News cheats. And we all basically subsidize Fox News as a result of that cheating.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
6/ Fox News could have $0 in advertising revenue and still have a 90% profit margin. That should be surprising given that they are a commercial media outlet. But this is in large part why Fox seems impervious to some ad pressure. They have a big cushion.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Pixabay
MMA’s Carusone explains those hidden fees on your cable bill.
7/ Every TV channel charges cable providers a fee for carrying channel set during negotiations. This is a subscriber fee. Provider pays this fee for each customer they have, not viewer of channel. Providers bundle channels into packages and pass costs to subscribers.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: Screenshot/YouTube
Fox News has negotiated high value deals with most network distributors. But it’s not just their negotiating skills; they lie to viewers to get their support.
8/ Fox News is notoriously recognized as the most aggressive negotiator. And it’s not just that they are good at it. They lie and cheat. They tell Fox News viewers that their cable company is trying to silence Fox News, they enlist their hosts to spread that misinformation too.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: Screenshot/YouTube
Because of the deals Fox has been able to make with distributors, all cable subscribers subsidize Fox News salaries.
9/ The effect? News & info channels’ subscriber fees are normally small. MSNBC gets ~$0.33, CNN gets between $0.70-0.90 per month (and includes CNN and CNN Headline News). In contrast, Fox News charges near or over $2 a month. This is wildly out of step with industry averages.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
11/ It’d be one thing if they were getting fees similar to other channels. If they were, they’d be more accountable to market forces and advertiser losses. In this case, they force everyone to subsidize their lies and extremism.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
20/ Fox News’ misinformation actively harms us all.
This is a moment of real reckoning for Fox, if we chose to act. I share the advertiser info to show it matters and that Fox will literally throw away hundreds of millions of dollars to advance its political interests.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
21/ But, make no mistake, those efforts have cost them real money. I share the cable fee stuff, because ultimately that is Fox News’ firewall. Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO, has repeatedly made it clear that as long as the rates remain (and go up) he won’t change programming.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: Pixabay
Fox is currently negotiating over half of their contracts with providers, and pushing to make even more money directly from all television viewers. This is the time to put pressure on companies to push back against them, and Angelo is laying out the plan.
12/ Right now, Fox News is in midst of renegotiating more than 65% of all their cable provider contracts. Try to increase as much as 75%. That would mean Fox goes up to more than $3/month.
If we say nothing, this happens. Fox gets even more money despite being extra destructive
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
14/ So, here’s what I think are the big next steps….
a) Advertisers — Continue to push on advertisers. @mmfa, the FoxNewsBoycott folks, @slpng_giants will def be on top of that.
This is important work and must continue. https://t.co/2Pk8XRy5Xf
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Canva
Reach out to your cable provider and tell them you don’t want to pay for Fox News in your cable bill. Make Fox News actually rely on ads for revenue and watch how fast they will change their programming.
15/ b) Cable Fees — Tell cable providers to stop forcing all of us to pay Fox News such a wildly inflated amount fee, let even consider jacking that up as much as they are trying. Make Fox News actually rely on ads for revenue, watch how fast they changehttps://t.co/SVNXdac464
The sooner the better.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Canva
Carusone predicts that there will be lawsuits against Fox News for the damage caused by their misinformation. Like the way they misled viewers about the coronavirus…
16/ c) Lawsuits - Fox News spent months not only downplaying coronavirus, but actively misinforming their audience about it - and also encouraging them to do dangerous things (like take trips). While Fox News was lying, the Murdochs were canceling gatherings and social distancing
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
17/ c) Lawsuits (cont) — It isn’t a question. There will be lawsuits. And the thing is, when that happens, my sense is that discovery will reveal that they were intentionally misinforming their audience and that they were coordinating with Trump admin to align messaging.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
Source: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
MediaMattersforAmerica has already gotten their hands on proof that on-air personalities at Fox were instructed to cast doubt on climate science.
18/ c) Lawsuits (cont) — Kinda like how when we finally got our hands on some internal memos, we found straight up proof that Fox News was sending instructions to on air shows to flat out lie about climate change.https://t.co/UutlO8TnOJ
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 31, 2020
