Although several commentators had predicted that the victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election would cripple the conservative-leaning Fox News Channel, the opposite has turned out to be the case, according to a new study by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism,. It reported over the weekend that in 2009, Fox moved ahead of CNN, the previous cable-news revenue leader, and far ahead of MSNBC. Fox News, the report said, was up 17 percent for the year with $534.8 million, while the combined Turner news channels CNN/HLN, which are sold as a package, were up only 1 percent to $475.5 million. MSNBC remained a distant third with a profit of $149.6 million. It was the first time that Fox had moved ahead of CNN in revenue, although it had long held the lead in ratings. The report concluded "In a year when many businesses had declining revenues, Fox News stood out for its strong growth. CNN and MSNBC remained basically flat, although that is still not such a bad thing in an environment where some media companies had great losses." It credited cable's dual revenue streams from both advertising and subscriber fees with sheltering the news channels from the setbacks that have plagued its newspaper and broadcasting counterparts, which depend primarily on advertising alone for their revenue.
15/03/2010
