Gretchen Carlson’s show ratings weren’t as ‘disappointing’ as Roger Ailes claims

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Gretchen Carlson, left, and Roger Ailes.

Was Gretchen Carlson tanking in the ratings when she was removed from Fox News Channel? 

It all depends on whose answer you’re reading.

Ailes said in a statement that ratings for “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson” were “disappointing.” 

Carlson’s attorneys fired back on Thursday morning, saying his statement was false and that she had improved ratings in the hour and that she had the top show in its hour.

Who is right? Business Insider looked into the numbers.

 

 

Carlson’s take:

Carlson dropped a bomb on Wednesday when she claimed in a newly filed lawsuit that she was fired from FNC on June 23 in retaliation for rebuffing sexual advances by its chairman and CEO Roger Ailes and for reporting gender discrimination in the newsroom.

The court papers claim that her contract wasn’t renewed, despite good ratings for “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.”

According to Nielsen ratings data, the show averaged 1.2 million total viewers and 189,000 viewers in the news audience (adults aged 25 to 54 years old) in June. That actually shows an improvement of 22% in total viewers and 28% in the demo audience compared to the same hour in June 2015.

This chart from TVNewser shows that “The Real Story” was indeed the No. 1 show in its time slot during the quarter (March 28 to June 26, 2016).

Verdict? True. Her show’s ratings represented a pretty big improvement in the time slot.

Ailes’ take:

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Ailes said Carlson’s lawsuit was filed in retaliation for being fired by FNC for “disappointingly low ratings [that] were dragging down the afternoon lineup.”

That’s subjective and based on Ailes’ and FNC’s expectations. Any network, though, would be happy to see a new show improve on the previous ratings in its hour.

As for dragging down ratings for the afternoon lineup, “The Real Story” is the lowest-rated afternoon show on FNC, which speaks to Ailes’ point of view.

At the same time, Carlson’s suit alleges that the 2 p.m. hour is a challenging time slot. So if she’s beating the other networks at the same time, then Carlson is making the best of a bad situation. For the quarter, “The Real Story” ranked No. 14 against all other cable news shows. Its closest 2 p.m. competition, “CNN Newsroom,” is all the way down at No. 26.

Most networks would take the ratings increase over risking the chance on a new show that may not do as well.

So “The Real Story” is actually enjoying higher ratings year-over-year and generally winning the hour against the other news channels. That’s pretty good news.

Verdict: True and false, but mostly false. Ailes may be disappointed with Carlson’s numbers, but FNC should be quite pleased. 

Winner?

Gretchen Carlson presents the more convincing case here. She had strong ratings for the time slot that had actually improved on the year before.

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