Was it really just two days ago that lefty blogs like Daily Kos, Rising Hegemon, and MOsanthrope were doing the Ferret Happy Dance over the bad ratings for Fox News?

Well, as usual, they weren’t being Fair and Balanced! Yes, Fox News did drop about 5% in the ratings, and perennial losers MSNBC and CNN managed some big gains. But big is relative. For example, when only your Mom is watching your show, if your Dad starts watching too, you’ve doubled your ratings!

From MediaBistro:

On the news side, the smaller news outlets showed the greatest growth as CNN Headline News soared in prime, elevating its audience by 73 percent to 347,000 total viewers. MSNBC was up 24 percent to 357,000 total viewers, and CNBC jumped 37 percent with 164,000 viewers. CNN was up 3 percent with 657,000 viewers, while ratings king Fox News Channel was off 5 percent, averaging 1.49 million viewers.

In short, Fox has about the same number of viewers as CNN Headline News, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC combined. In fact, the top nine shows in February all belonged to Fox. Again from MediaBistro:

In the 25-54 demographic this month, O’Reilly was #1 with 454,000 viewers, way more than anyone else. Shep was #2, H&C was #3, Hume was #4, and Fox & Friends was #5.

FNC’s least popular programs among young viewers (Fox News Live, DaySide and The Big Story) still ranked higher than all but one of CNN’s shows.

CNN’s top program, Larry King Live, ranked tenth, with 228,000 demo viewers. Anderson Cooper was second with 207,000 and Lou Dobbs was third with 167,000.

But it gets better (if you’re not a liberal).

Air America Radio, notorious for their Robbin’ da ‘Hood scandal and mysteriously vanishing affiliates may be on its last legs according to this news scoop from Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer. It seems that AAR is likely to lose their flagship station, WLIB-AM in New York because of contract disputes.

While the network’s last day on WLIB isn’t known for certain, an internal source providing backing documentation points to the end of March. At this time, Air America parent Piquant LLC has no firm back-up plan for where in the nation’s largest radio market its programming will now air.

Some inside the firm are already referring to WLIB in the past tense.

Without WLIB, Air America faces an immediate, crushing blow. Worth perhaps 100 small markets combined, an on-air presence in New York City is absolutely vital to the company’s survival. If an immediate and suitable replacement isn’t found, the consequences would be dire.

[Hat tip: Michelle Malkin for the original link]

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