Following the Political Tide

NEW YORK —  Fox News Channel likes to call itself “fair and balanced” in the face of critics who rail about its conservative bent, but its viewers have shown a marked preference for watching the channel’s take on Republicans over Democrats.

During the Republican National Convention two weeks ago, even NBC’s Tom Brokaw didn’t prove a draw, as Fox trounced the better-funded, more widely distributed MSNBC. Fox also beat CNN at a few key times, even though CNN is available in millions more homes.

But this week, the tides have rapidly turned. Through Wednesday night, Fox was running a distant third to CNN, and MSNBC had come back to a respectable second place. With Fox’s audience patterns seeming to jibe with its on-air image--the network says openly that it airs more conservative viewpoints than its rivals--some observers are even beginning to make parallels with the pre-objectivity days of journalism, when newspapers declared their political bias upfront and readers chose accordingly.

Average viewership of Fox News Channel during the Democratic convention has dropped a stunning 45%, to 393,000 average viewers, in prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research, compared to what the channel did during the Republican convention two weeks ago; MSNBC is up 49%, to 625,000, in prime time for the first three days. MSNBC’s Los Angeles number, however, is still behind Fox’s three-day Philadelphia average of 716,000 viewers.

Said MSNBC spokesman Mark O’Connor: “We’re very happy with our numbers for both events. It’s very obvious that our niche is news, Fox’s is conservatives and we have a much broader audience.”

Fox executive producer Marty Ryan says he “is not sure what to make of that. We’re very happy with our coverage, and the network’s showing, considering it wasn’t on the air four years ago.”

As for CNN, it is up about 25% in average prime-time viewers, to 1.56 million, from 1.25 million during the Republican event.

Gail Evans, CNN executive vice president, attributes her network’s gains to the fact that the Democrats are “a more compelling story,” from the “love affair that this country has with Bill Clinton and the questions they have about who is Hillary Clinton” to interest in the relatively unknown Sen. Joe I. Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah.

As for the showing of CNN’s rivals, Evans would say only: “Fox and MSNBC have been in this battle too short a period of time to be sure why one is up and one is down. Everybody has their theories; I just don’t think we have enough information yet to be sure if the theories hold water.”

Still, like many in the industry who had a gut feeling Fox wouldn’t fare as well with the Democrats as Republicans, even Fox executives privately worried that their ratings would fall this week--and they were right.

Ryan speculated that the higher numbers were, in part, a result of both CNN and MSNBC putting on a big promotional push after Philadelphia. And, he said, he “just doesn’t buy into the premise” that the network’s viewers are conservative, although there is some speculation that maybe 30% are, he said, because that was Fox’s downturn between the opening night of the Democrats and Republicans.

As for guest booking, which Fox had also been nervous about, Ryan said “our access to officials has been better with the DNC than the RNC.” Republicans, he said, had been “very inconsistent,” and he noted Fox has had interviews with nominee Al Gore and his family, as well as two with Lieberman.

All three news networks have executives with political pasts. CNN and MSNBC have some executives who worked for Democrats. However, Fox’s ties are the strongest: Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes had a long career as a media consultant for Republican presidents.