Thread by @GoAngelo

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)...

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

10/ Fox News' fees are artificially inflated. Fox would not be able to sustain itself in its current incarnation w/out bullying cable providers into overpaying. It's time the 90M cable customers pushback way Fox has pushed all these years. We need a Fox News fee correction.

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.

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

13/ I share that because it is important context and an important backdrop here. It's happening right now, and if we really want to hold Fox News accountable...this seems like a no brainer. At minimum, they shouldn't get more money from us all.

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.

mediamatters.org/fox-news/these…

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 change

unfoxmycablebox.com

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

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.

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.

mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxle…

19/ c) Lawsuits (cont) - 10 yrs ago, I was involved in some of the advocacy around the Murdoch's UK hacking scandal. They got caught hacking hundreds of people's phones. Started when one nasty hack was revealed, then whole thing was blown open. This moment feels very similar

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.

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.

22/ And, I share the lawsuit stuff, because it's not only inevitable but because it reminded me of similar moments. In the past, the phone hacking forced the Murdochs to split NewsCorp into 2 companies. This time it could actually unravel their control.

23/ So, stay tuned.

We tried to warn shareholders at the last annual gathering. They should have listened.

Your participation matters. Onward!