…

Perhaps the audience doesn’t like being told how deplorable they are?

Thank the Federal Reserve for mostly useless media.

Easy money and big loans means the little media fish were swallowed by giant corporate conglomerates and then all the incentives change. Theoretically, Big owners of media outlets could afford to throw away money on them, while using their media influence to make even more money in all their other ventures. A bit like the way Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million and ran anti-Trump-news non-stop. He’s just protecting the main asset worth $1.7 Trillion.

Do you want to persuade the punters to vote for pagan weather gods, and inefficient, unreliable generators? How about burying lost laptops and high risk health programs? Or maybe it’s just the thing to earn points with Klaus Schwab, who can return the favor some other way?

— Well, don’t buy adverts on a TV station, buy the station and put your adverts in their news instead.

The only problem is that  lies, propaganda and lectures are boring, and they can’t force us to watch it (yet):

Fox News Channel was the only cable news network to make year-over-year ratings gains in the first quarter of 2022, finishing the quarter in first place and marking 81 consecutive quarters as the most-watched network in all of basic cable. FNC’s competitors, CNN and MSNBC, both suffered steep ratings declines compared to the same period one year ago.

In prime time, Fox News finished the quarter with an average total audience of 2.554 million viewers, up 3% from 2021, according to ratings data compiled by Nielsen. MSNBC finished the quarter in second place with an average total audience of 1.205 million viewers—down 46%, while CNN finished third with an average total audience of less than a million viewers: 857,000 viewers, down a staggering 56% from 2021.

In a nation of 330 million people, all these audience numbers seem small. Tucker Carlson is watched by 3.5 million a night, but that’s only 1% — perhaps more watching via social media “shares”..  Is everyone just watching Netflix, Youtube or Facebook instead?

Good to see CNN and MSNBC getting what they deserve.