It must be that they are all reading blogs!

The major television networks are all losing audience share. James Hibberd reports at Entertainment,

Here’s how the networks themselves are faring overall compared to this point last year in the adult demo: NET ..THEN .. NOW
NBC… 2.8 2.5…-11%
CBS… 2.5 2.2…-12%
ABC… 2.1 1.8…-14%
Fox 1.9 1.7…-11%

Read more here.

How do you get your news?

Tali Arbel writes at Phys.Org,

TV remains the dominant news source, but smartphone-addicted younger people are spending less time with it. Some 84 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds get news from social media like Facebook, and increasingly on their phones, according to Pew Research Center. Research firm eMarketer has predicted that digital ad spending will surpass TV ad spending in the U.S. next year for the first time.

And even if they were watching TV, the young people advertisers identify more as Democrats than Republicans by a 54-30 margin, according to a GenForward poll.

While Fox has been the top-rated U.S. cable-news channel for 14 years, overall cable news audiences have been shrinking outside of presidential elections. More than half of Fox's viewers are over 65, says data tracker Nielsen, compared to just 15 percent of Americans as a whole.

"Fox News has been far more of a TV-centric business than a web or mobile business, if you compare it even to CNN," said BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield. He pointed out as one example CNN's spot on Snapchat's Discover page, which spools up video and quick-read articles from media companies. Snapchat, a messaging app, is a blockbuster hit with young adults and teenagers.

Fox has done some digital experiments, including a live Q&A on Facebook during the GOP debate it aired last August, which drew a startling 24 million viewers (just less than the Grammys). It's also streaming video on Facebook from this week's Republican National Convention.

While those may not be as ambitious as rival efforts, analysts like McCall suggest that may not matter much to Fox right now, given its older audience. Those viewers aren't "the kind of people who are going to be getting news off Twitter in same way as someone in their 30s or 40s," he said.

Read more here.

The sky's the limit

Did we just get an alpha male into the 2016 GOP presidential race? No, I'm definitely not referring to Jeb Bush. I am referring to "The Donald."


Did you know that Trump got his life plan from a hobo?

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PJ O'Rourke writes at The Daily Beast,

...During this endless grim, foggy, electoral season with its constant drizzle of wannabes, I intend to make little prose pictures of each candidatural dwarf until we are down to two.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that the two may be “Clinton” and “Bush.” Members of the electorate in their right minds will go into the ballot booth, see the names, think to themselves, “I did this already.” And leave with the ballot unmarked. Voter turn-out will be 6 percent. The shuttle from the local extended care facility will send a few memory-impaired Republicans to the polls. A DNC bus will collect some derelicts from skid row. And we will have the first President of the United States elected by a franchise limited to sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease and drunken bums.

Let us therefore begin at the bottom of the campaign barrel with the lees, the dross, and the dregs, by which I mean Donald Trump.

Or is Trump just using the garbage of his personality to chum for publicity again? If he isn’t really a candidate, I see no reason to take him at his word, any more than I’d take him at his word about anything else.

...Besides, I, personally, support his candidacy. “Democracy,” said H. L. Mencken, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

The American government is of the people, by the people, for the people. And, these days, America is peopled by 320 million Donald Trumps. Donald Trump is representative of all that we hold dear: money. Or, rather, he is representative of greed for money. We common people may not be able to match Trump’s piggy bank, but we can match his piggishness.

...Many a candidate for president has fibbed on the subject of his or her economic circumstances—William Henry “born in a log cabin” Harrison and Hillary “dead broke” Clinton. But Trump will be the first candidate to — like the American legend that he is — tell tall tales about all the money he’s got. Trump is a financial Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Davey Crockett rolled into one, according to Trump.

If Trump’s critics don’t think this is typical of modern Americans, they haven’t looked at our online dating profiles.

Also typical of modern Americans is Trump’s bad taste. True, he doesn’t dress the way the rest of us do—like a nine-year-old in twee T-shirt, bulbous shorts, boob shoes, and league-skunked sports team cap. And Trump doesn’t weigh 300 pounds or have multiple piercings or visible ink. He puts his own individual stamp on gaucherie. And we like it. We’re a country that cherishes being individuals as much as we cherish being gauche.

We have to consider what kind of president he would make. What would his foreign policy be? What domestic priorities would he favor? How would he handle the economy?

On all three counts he’ll be—just like he says he is already—a big success.

...Imagine the strides Trump will make in American foreign policy. He’s crazier than all the other candidates put together. He’s under the illusion that he’s 20 times richer than he is. He thinks childhood vaccination caused the movie Rain Man. He believes Obama was born to the Queen of Sheba in an H. Rider Haggard novel. Putin, Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Khamenei, ISIS, the Taliban, and Hamas will be paralyzed with fear. Who knows what this lunatic will do?

What he’ll do is build thousands of Trump casinos, Trump hotels, and Trump resorts in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Raqqa, Kandahar, and Gaza. Then all of them will go bankrupt the way Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza Hotel, and Trump Entertainment Resorts did. He’ll destroy the power of our foes leaving Russia trying to palm off Eastern Ukraine on angry bond-holders and China auctioning distressed property in the Spratly Islands.

Trump’s chief domestic policy will be to be on TV. That’s one more reason he’ll get elected. We can relate to Trump. The first and foremost goal of all Americans is to be on TV.

As President Trump will be able to be on TV all the time, 24/7. Just doing his hair in the makeup room during commercial breaks should keep him too busy to push other birdbrain domestic policies the way some presidents have. And he can yell “You’re fired!” as much as he wants. It will make for a healthy turnover in cabinet appointees such as Ivanka, Dennis Rodman, Larry King, and Vince McMahon.

And Trump understands the economy. He’ll push America’s economic growth forward the same way he pushed his own—with debt and more debt. Average American household debt is more than $225,000. The average American family’s credit card debt is almost $16,000. Trump restructured $3.5 billion in business debt and $900 million in personal debt between 1991 and 1994. We Americans know a leader when we see one. And we love debt. Otherwise America’s national debt wouldn’t have gone from $15 billion in 1930 to $18 trillion today. Tomorrow, with Trump in the Oval Office, the sky’s the limit.

Read more here.

Changing the channel

Since I never watch t.v. at home, unless the Broncos are playing in the Super Bowl, and then the t.v. is turned off by halftime, when I go to the gym I like to see what's on Fox News. The first thing I do is change the channel, which is always on CNN for some reason. My changing the channel has never caused a fight or argument, since I live out in the suburbs, but I can imagine it might be controversial if I did it in Denver or Boulder. Do you do something similar?

Far fewer people watching cable t.v. news.

What are people watching on t.v.? Noel Sheppard reports at Newsbusters that far fewer people are watching cable t.v. news broadcasts.

Data released Tuesday show CNN shedding 48 percent of total viewers since last November and MSNBC dropping 45 percent. Fox News is down 18 percent.

So, what are people watching? Football? Yes, certainly here in Colorado, where Peyton Manning toils away in orange and blue, trying to avoid tacklers aiming for his ankles.

What are the programs you watch each week?