Report: Fox Viewers Graying

Megyn Kelly

Fox News continues to be near the top in cable television in terms of the number of viewers it attracts, but it is near the top in another category, too: the median age of its audience is among the oldest in television, according to a story by Bill Carter at The NY Times.

For most of the television business that would be serious cause for concern because ad sales are almost always based on a target age of 25 to 54, and Fox News, for the last two years, has had a median age of 65-plus in its ratings both for the full day and for prime time.

But up until now at least, Fox News has been more able than any other television entity to defy the tyranny of the demos, as they are known in the business. And the network, which has upturned traditions and expectations throughout its history, has earned consistently enormous profits, relying on the commitment and loyalty of its audience.

That translates into big money because cable systems now pay Fox News one of the highest per-subscriber fees in television, 94 cents a month, topped in cable television only by a few networks, most of which have expensive sports rights to pay. By comparison, CNN gets 57 cents a subscriber, according to SNL Kagan Research.

With close to 100 million subscribers in total, Fox News will take in $1.11 billion this year from subscription fees before it ever sells a single commercial, Kagan estimated.

Read More Now

"Subscriber fees" are collected directly from the cable service provider, who passes the cost onto the customer. The fee the cable service provider must pay to a cable TV channel can vary depending on whether it is a basic or premium channel and the perceived popularity of that channel. Because cable service providers are not required to carry all cable channels, they may negotiate the fee they will pay for carrying a channel. Typically, more popular cable channels command higher fees.

For example, ESPN typically charges $4.69 per subscriber per month for access to its main channel alone (plus another $1.13 for the rest of its English-language channels), the highest of any non-premium American cable channel and comparable to the premium channels.

The fees for local broadcast stations vary depending on retransmission consent deals, and can range from a simple barter (carrying a digital subchannel or low-power sister station) to as high as $1.00 per subscriber per month. If a full-power local broadcast station does not have the clout to demand a retransmission consent fee but still wants to be carried on cable television, it can invoke must-carry and force cable operators to carry the channel; using must-carry, however, requires the station not collect any fees for the right to be carried on cable.

Many cable channels do not charge subscriber fees, and in the case of infomercial, home shopping, and low-power channels not covered under must-carry, may even pay the cable provider for carriage.