RUSH: You know, at CNN they’re obsessed with Fox News. Throughout the Drive-By Media they are obsessed with Fox News. They just don’t understand it. They don’t understand how come Fox is running rings around them ratings-wise. They don’t understand, Well, actually they do. That’s what this next sound bite is about. They’re just frustrated. They’re frustrated as hell that Fox News makes so much more money than they do.
They violate rule number one in competitive circumstances. That is, you never mention the competitor. I know those days are out the window, but it’s an age-old philosophy. You never mention the competitor, even if you’re losing to them, you never mention them. If you’re winning, you never mention them. You never punch down. But they can’t help it. And so they are obsessed with how Fox News happened.
On NY1 there’s a program called Inside City Hall. Its host is Errol Louis. And he had Little Brian Stelter, who is the media bigwig at CNN, hosts the program called Reliable Sources. So this is Friday night’s version of Inside City Hall. Errol Louis has got Brian Stelter on. Errol Louis said, “Let’s not let the audience off the hook. Fox is a money machine. They want to stay in the good graces of not just the president, but their vast audience.” In other words, Fox News is being ripped for knowing who its audience is. Fox News is being criticized for actually respecting its audience. Here’s what Brian Stelter said.
STELTER: Trump and Fox are benefiting from, from a foundation that was built decades ago, Rush Limbaugh, attacking the media 30 years ago.
LOUIS: Rush Limbaugh has made a ton of money doing this, and he has a big vast audience, but the things that he says are just ridiculous. He’s got a great baritone voice, he’s very entertaining, he’s a great broadcaster…
STELTER: Right, right. Yeah.
LOUIS: …but he says a lot of stuff that’s just, I mean, it’s just junk. It’s nonsense.
RUSH: Right. So the thing is, these guys are right. These guys are absolutely right about the genesis of Fox News. Fox News, in many ways, is talk radio on television. And then there is also a news division where Fox does actual hard news, and that’s most of the busy broadcast day with the prime show being Special Report with Bret Baier. But there is no question that they are right about this. And notice how they acknowledge me as a prodigious and premier broadcaster. Great broadcaster, very entertaining, great, great baritone voice. The stuff he says is just junk, though.
Except it isn’t junk. It is the truth. And whereas the Fox News Channel respects and knows and understands its audience, so do I. CNN doesn’t care. CNN’s audience is not even its viewers. CNN’s audience is other media people. I just wanted to share this with you, though, because they do understand the origins and they do get why, and it frustrates them to no end.