The Fox Primary By the Numbers, January 9 - 15, 2012

by Oliver Willis/Media Matters

Former Fox employees Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich took the lion's share of last week's Fox Primary, with the two collectively appearing on Fox for over an hour and a half. Santorum and Gingrich accounted for over 50 percent of the time Fox devoted to interviewing the Republican presidential field.

Mitt Romney made just one appearance, but his presence was felt elsewhere on Fox, with host Eric Bolling declaring "we're all on board if Mitt's it," while Sean Hannity warned off Gingrich and Rick Perry from attacking Romney's record at Bain Capital.

So who's winning the Fox Primary? Each week at Media Matters, we watch the interviews, crunch the numbers, and tell you what Fox is up to in the presidential campaign.

Last Week's Results

 Total time: 3 hours and 4 minutes; Total appearances: 29

Most Total Airtime on Fox:  Newt Gingrich (59 minutes)

Most Total Appearances: Newt Gingrich (8 appearances)

Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime: On The Record (35 minutes)

Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances: Fox and Friends (6 appearances)

Longest Candidate Interview: Fox News Sunday (13 minutes with Rick Santorum)

Softball Question(s) of the Week: During the January 10, 2012, edition of Happening Now, Fox News host Jon Scott asked candidate Rick Santorum:

SCOTT: What's the biggest misimpression about you that you think people -- should be -- should have corrected?

(A table of the January 9 - 15, 2012 data is available here.)

The Numbers Since June 1, 2011

Total time: 86 hours and 37 minutes; Total appearances: 691

Most Total Airtime on Fox since June 1: Herman Cain (11 hours and 6 minutes)

Most Total Appearances since June 1: Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul (78 appearances each)

Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime Since June 1: On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (14 hours and 11 minutes)

Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances since June 1: On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (103 appearances)

Longest Candidate Interview since June 1: Stossel (40 minutes with Gary Johnson)

(A table of all the data since June 1, 2011 is available here.)

Previous Fox Primary Reports

June 1 - 5, 2011
June 6 - 12, 2011
June 13 - 19, 2011
June 20 - 26, 2011
June 27 - July 4, 2011
July 5 - 10, 2011
July 11 - 17, 2011
July 18 - 24, 2011
July 25 - 31, 2011
August 1 - 7, 2011
August 8 - 14, 2011
August 15 - 21, 2011
August 22 - 28, 2011
August 29 - September 4, 2011
September 5 - 11, 2011
September 12 - 18, 2011
September 19 - 25, 2011
September 26 - October 2, 2011
October 3 - 9, 2011October 10 - 16, 2011
October 17 - 23, 2011
October 24 - 30, 2011
October 31 - November 6, 2011
November 7 - 13, 2011
November 14 - 20, 2011
November 21 - 27, 2011
November 28 - December 4, 2011
December 5 - 11, 2011
December 12 - 18, 2011
December 19, 2011 - January 1, 2012
January 2-8, 2012

Methodology

Media Matters searched the Nexis database for all guest appearances on Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox News Sunday for the 10 declared and potential presidential candidates in question: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum.

For programs where a transcript was unavailable, Media Matters reviewed the raw video.

Changes to the reports

Media Matters added McCotter to the data beginning on June 20, 2011 and Roemer beginning on July 21, 2011. We stopped including McCotter on September 22, 2011; he dropped out of the race that day.

We stopped including Pawlenty and Trump in the data beginning on August 14, 2011; Pawlenty dropped out of the race on that date. And while Trump stated that he would no longer seek the Republican nomination but may instead run as an independent (on June 1, 2011, the beginning of this report), we decided to drop him from the data on this date.

We stopped including Bolton in the data beginning on September 6, 2011; Bolton decided not to run on this date.

We stopped including Palin in the data after her decision not to run was made on October 5, 2011.

We stopped including Giuliani in the data after he announced on October 11, 2011 that he would not run.

We stopped including Cain in the data when he suspended his campaign on December 3, 2011.

We stopped including Johnson in the data on December 28, 2011; Johnson announced he would seek the Libertarian Party's nomination.

We stopped including Bachmann in the data when she suspended her campaign on January 4, 2012.