If you ask me, it probably wouldn’t behoove any of the news networks to try and highlight their 25 to 35 because my experience is that people in that age group don’t watch a lot of news comparatively, so by including more folks over 35, it gives them better totals.

That’s not how ratings work. Your turning the television on, or Bob down the road leaving it on while he takes a shower does not contribute to ratings. You need to do some research on how Nielsen collects data… it may surprise you (it surprised me… but that was back in college).

As for age differences… they do split out “demo” and “non-demo” folks… so your answer should be in there somewhere. Although, I’m not sure the relevance of the age differences (actually, I just don’t think they’re relevant, I understand the concept behind “demo” numbers).

I don’t have a Nielsen box, but just as they are supposed to measure a representative sample, I have to assume that I represent a sample of their measure.

And, because the average age of the United States has been inching up for a while, due to a variety of factors, I don’t know, but I have to assume that if Nielsen is being true to their statistical model, the average age of Nielsen participants has also been inching up.

IOW: I don’t have a box, but one would think there’s somebody like me who has a box or their numbers would be off, and one assumes that Nielsen samples are based on population statistics, which means that not only would there be some older folks who leave Fox on all day in their sample, but because the average age of the country has been increasing, there’s likely more people my age and older being measured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

Of course it’s not perfect, but…

As for MSNBC, I tune in on occassion, used to watch them for the laugh factor, but they have gone off the deep end (Matthews and West Point being “an enemy camp” is a prime example of off the deep end stuff). I watch Rachel’s show on occasion, but she doesn’t hold my attention. I don’t care at all for Hannity’s show.

CNN is dead for me, has been for a long time. Between Campbell Brown’s vicious attack on Palin when she deputed on the scene, Anderson’s “teabagging” stuff, and Klein insistence they do “real journalism” when they really don’t is just too much for me.

I’m mostly thankful that Al Gore invented the internet — without it, the truth would never get out. Although I did laugh when I read that Jon Stewart took on Al Gore and the climategate scandal and the internet. Funny that Stewart can “report” on climategate but Katie, Brian, and Charlie seem to be ignorant on the topic.

Anyone who gets their news from one source is a fool and they deserve what they get.

Fox wins because there’s a huge number of people who turn it on and just leave it. My experience is that they tend to be older and more conservative, but they generally turn it on for background noise.

I’m the same way with CNN. If I’m not holding the clicker, I generally put the kids TV onto PBS and I turn mine to CNN and if I’m not running it in the background, if I just want to catch up on what’s happening today, my first stop is always CNN.