Hosting the party: Fox aired at least 20 segments, 73 promos on “tea party” protests -- in just 8 days

A Media Matters study found that from April 6 to April 13, Fox News featured at least 20 segments on the “tea party” protests scheduled to take place on April 15 and aired at least 73 in-show and commercial promotions for their April 15 coverage of the events.

From April 6 to April 13, Fox News featured at least 20 segments on the “tea party” protests scheduled to take place on April 15 and aired at least 73 in-show and commercial promotions for their upcoming April 15 coverage of the events, a Media Matters for America study has found. As Media Matters has documented, Fox News has aggressively promoted the events in recent weeks, encouraging viewers to get involved with tea-party protests across the country. Indeed, Fox News has repeatedly described them as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” On April 15, four of the network's hosts will be broadcasting live from various tea parties.

Of the programs, Your World with Neil Cavuto featured the most segments on the protests with at least seven. Including weekend editions, Fox & Friends and America's Newsroom came in second with at least four segments each. Hannity featured the most promos during its hour, with at least 12 -- 10 of them in-show -- while Your World and Glenn Beck each showed at least eight promos, five in-show. The study also found that at least nine of the 20 segments and 40 of the 73 promos aired April 11-13, as the April 15 date drew closer. The study did not include numerous teasers that Fox shows ran previewing upcoming segments on tea parties.

The following is a table of all the Fox shows that were coded for at least one segment or promo:

Weekday

Program

Segment

In-show promo

Commercial

Fox & Friends

2

1

1

America's Newsroom

4

0

2

Happening Now

0

0

4

The Live Desk

0

0

2

Studio B with Shepard Smith

0

0

1

Your World with Neil Cavuto

7

5

3

Glenn Beck

1

5

3

Special Report with Bret Baier

0

0

2

The Fox Report with Shepard Smith

0

0

3

The O'Reilly Factor

0

0

3

Hannity

2

10

2

On the Record with Greta Van Susteren

1

1

6

Weekend

Program

Segment

In-show promo

Commercial

Fox & Friends Saturday

1

0

0

Bulls & Bears

0

1

0

Cavuto on Business

1

0

0

Forbes on Fox

0

1

0

America's News HQ Saturday

0

0

2

Fox & Friends Sunday

1

0

4

America's News HQ Sunday

0

0

5

The Fox Report

0

0

3

Geraldo at Large

0

0

3

A list of all the segments and promos coded is available here.

Methodology

The study counted every segment and promo aired during Fox News original programming between 6 a.m. ET and midnight from April 6 to April 13. A segment during a show was counted if it was primarily about the tea-party protests; a promo was defined as either a commercial or an in-program promotion touting Fox's upcoming April 15 coverage of the tea parties. Segments or promos that ran during rebroadcasts of shows were not included. Most shows were viewed on digital video if available. For a few shows that were available on the Nexis database, transcripts were used for coding.