Murdoch Says E-Book Prices Will Kill Paper Books 538
hrimhari writes "The settlement between Amazon and Macmillian got the attention of a known dinosaur. Consistent to his views, Mr. Murdoch wants to defend his book editors by killing the cheaper solution. '"We don't like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99," Murdoch said. "They pay us the wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge," he said. "But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.'"
This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
another old wrinkly dinosaur doesn't like change! news at 11.
"Murdoch Wants" (Score:5, Insightful)
Well hell, there's reason enough for me to oppose whatever else is in the paragraph below, never mind TFA.
However, upon reading TFA I learned that he owns HarperCollins. So there's another publisher I don't need to feel bad about ignoring.
Price??!? (Score:5, Insightful)
First they have to be cheaper then paper books.
9.99 isn't CHEAP for an ebook you don't own (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't own the book, you can't sell it, you can't loan it and you can't donate it to a library. The paperback edition will eventually cost less than the 9.99 to 14.99 that Macmillan wants to charge. They need to enter the real world where you can go to a used bookstore a couple of months after a book is published and get it for less than their ebook prices.
Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
"But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.'"
No kidding. Competition is funny that way.
What is his problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they're getting paid $14 and the retailer is selling it at a loss, well, he already got $14 for it!
Books (Score:3, Insightful)
Paper books will always live. One the one hand, there are still a billion people in the world without access to regular electricity. On the other, we might have limited resources in the future to make new electronic devices, due to peak oil and climate change. Yet, we can always make paper on a small, local scale if necessary. But electronic devices require a large industrial infrastructure.
After all, we have thousands of years of written human history, but only a tiny moment of digital history. It would be presumptuous of us to assume the latter will last longer than the former.
http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/10/ebooks-versus-paper.html [selfdestru...stards.com]
Tough Choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Price??!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon's pricing is kind of weird. If I were the kind of person that HAD to have books when they first came out I might be tempted to buy a $9.99-$14.99 ebook rather than a $25.00-$30.00 hardcover. On the other hand, I'm quite likely to pick up the hardcover anyway - those things only sell because they're basically collectors editions.
The older books priced at around $2.50 look great. Those seem to be priced just right, although the public domain classics really should be $0.99.
Then there's the weird class of Kindle books that Amazon seems to be pricing around $8.39 (CAN). In most cases they seemed to be more expensive than the equivalent paperback, as Amazon's helpful price comparison pointed out.
There's no way I'm paying more than 50% of the price of a paperback for an e-book, and that fraction goes down the older that book gets.
Re:9.99 isn't CHEAP for an ebook you don't own (Score:2, Insightful)
Their new 'real world' is the one they seek to promote. One where there is no second sale, because there's nothing physical to sell.
Book publishers really dislike second sales of their work. They'd rather consumers threw them away.
The e-book market is tailor made for their strategy.
Prices (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a preemptive reply to the ten million people who are about to post variations on the following theme
"e-books should only cost a few dollars because they don't have the cost of printing/shipping/storing a book"
This is wrong.
This is wrong because actually printing a book is the smallest cost involved in making one. When you look at the price of, say, a $35 hardcover book perhaps $4 is physical costs. Almost all of the cost of a book is the cost of paying the author/editor/proofreader plus the retail markup. These costs remain the same regardless of format.
And you will note that I have not mentioned publisher's profit. That's because there basically isn't one. Publishing is notorious for having no profit margin. Always has been. It was famous for not making money a century ago, famous for it fifty years ago and still a great way to get well known while losing money today. Publishing is not the music industry and it is not the movie industry. Almost all the profit is spent in up-front costs before the product even hits the streets.
Because of this, publishing has always had a very sane pricing policy. First they publish the hardcover for a high price point. Everyone who can't wait to read it buys it. Then if it is popular enough to pay off the costs six months or a year later they produce a softcover for $10 to pick up everyone who didn't want it enough to pay the hardcover costs.
Now, this doesn't mesh very well with the electronic music or video markets which is why Amazon tries to run with a fixed price point. But that's a nuts way of doing things when you are talking about books. Doesn't work because it doesn't pay off the fixed costs involved in paying the people who produce the books.
So, really, a fair e-book price is about $5 less than whatever it is selling for on the shelf. When a book first comes out that means $30-$40. A year or so later $6 is pretty likely. If you can't stand waiting don't bitch about the higher price.
For a real understanding, check out this post from John Scalzi (author) that is really fantastic
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/ [scalzi.com]
Re:Devalues books... (Score:3, Insightful)
If hardcovers and paperbacks were released simultaneously, I expect many more people would flock to paperbacks. Take Harry Potter for example - if both versions had been available at one of those midnight releases, don't you think many people would have taken the cheaper route? They wanted it that night, and hardcover was the only option, so that's what they paid for.
I agree - if I'm going to buy a hardcover over a paperback, then I'd probably also get a hardcover over an ebook. But usually if I'm buying a hardcover, I'm doing that over stealing a copy, since that's my only other option (I don't own an ebook reader so buying an ebook isn't a practical option... I'll read long documents on a computer screen, but not a novel) since a paperback version isn't available at the time.
At least music stores were lucky enough to get several format switches for the same content. Bookstores have always had just books (and to a much lesser extent, audiobooks; unlike with music format switching though, you're probably going to get one or the other and not both), and I'm sure they've been biting their nails since the first e-ink/e-paper prototypes came out. FWIW, I meant bookstores in general when I said companies that sell hardcovers. To me, paper is paper.
Re:Just let Ebooks die already (Score:2, Insightful)
At some point, ebooks will be on-par or better readability-wise than paper books. I'm no apple fan but the iPad's demonstration as an ereader got me interested for the first time.
When the convenience and ubiquitousness of downloading books on a reader reaches a certain critical mass, I guarantee you people will ditch paper books. Not completely. LPs are still popular but they're certainly not the dominant format. CDs are still the dominant format but we've all heard and can see the day coming when digital downloads for movies, music, tv will come. Books will come along with that.
Heck it's already a huge industry. Just google for ebooks. There are businesses laughing all the way to bank while naysayers like you and others say you don't understand the attraction. In truth, you do, you just haven't connected all the conveniences your computer gives you with digital goods with books.
In the end, the medium isn't what matters. It's the content. In 10 years the kids will be creating fond memories sitting at their cottage not with an old paper back but with an old ipad their dad got them for their previous birthday.
Re:Prices (Score:3, Insightful)
MSRP may be $30-$40, but I've never seen an actual hardcover that was actually selling for that that wasn't giant book o' stunning pictures. Most of the time you get them for "40% off!!!" which brings new hardcovers into the 17-24 range.
Publishing is not the music industry and it is not the movie industry. Almost all the profit is spent in up-front costs before the product even hits the streets.
Got it, it's the movie industry. Unless those "up-front" costs are actually printing and storage costs. But that wouldn't jive well with your assertion that printing is a tiny fraction of the cost of bringing a book to market.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
His assertion that Amazon was losing 4 bucks on every ebook sold is utter nonsense. You can't sell that many kindles to make up for that kind of losses.
He has a problem with loss leaders. Too bad. What he seeks to do is nothing more than to forcibly repeal the First Sale Doctrine [wikipedia.org] and Bobbs-Merrill vs Straus [wikipedia.org].
I say fine. The sooner all the publishers band together and collude with Steve Jobs to raise book prices and dictate the Retail price the sooner the DOJ can step in and smack them down for price fixing.
If the publishers want more money they could have just started rising price (regardless of the fact we are in the midst of a rather major depression). But to attempt to dictate retail prices by banding together is nothing but an assault on copyright law.
I notice no crocodile tears are shed by Murdoch for the authors, who are still stuck at 5 to 10% of revenue.
Re:Just let Ebooks die already (Score:2, Insightful)
I read about one novel a week, i have a large book library and a Sony PRS-300, and to tell you the truth i much prefer the E-book reader now as i don't have to worry about book storage or if i have a spare book with me. I tend to load up the next 4 or 5 books i plan to read so i am always ready to go. Plus its light so easy to carry in my briefcase, and i can just pop it out while i am waiting for an appointment.
Only thing i really like now in printed form is my Saturday newspaper and cooking books.
Re:The information market was like the housing mar (Score:5, Insightful)
Book publishing is an expensive business and e-books level the playing field considerably. The three biggest costs in book production are (not necessarily in this order):
1. Printing
2. Marketing
3. Distribution
A publisher needs to have confidence that a book will sell X copies at Y price in order to know that they will at least break even on publishing it. And I guarantee you that every publisher has a warehouse full of books they guessed wrong on and nobody bought. But those costs are sunk. They pay get pennies on the dollar at the paper recycler but otherwise they've blown a lot of cash printing books they never sold.
As on-demand, and now e-book, publishing has become more and more viable the break-even point has come WAY down and books that would never have seen the light of day are getting their chance.
And publishers should LOVE eBooks - it takes printing and distribution largely out of the equation and means far greater profits off a much lower price. I wouldn't mind if my publisher did Kindle versions of my books, that's just one more medium and a much higher net profit from the books.
Re:Books (Score:3, Insightful)
Disagree... paper's days are limited as a mass media medium. Sure we'll still have limited paper runs for certain "classics" and for official documents. But your general "Michael Crichton" book will no longer come in paper format. This is of course once we've figured out how to do the ebook properly.
Re:One other thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:9.99 isn't CHEAP for an ebook you don't own (Score:4, Insightful)
The paperback edition will eventually cost less than the 9.99 to 14.99 that Macmillan wants to charge.
Yes, and you'll quite likely find that the price Macmillan wants to charge will drop as the paperbacks come out.
It's simple economics. Those who want it the day it comes out are generally prepared to pay a price premium for the privilege. Over time, the price drops, and others come in (trade paperback, mass market paperback.) Me? I only buy Terry Pratchett in hardcover; everybody else has to wait until mass market paperback, for various reasons.
Remember that publishers don't just print the books. They also edit them, lay them out, and market them. There are costs involved in those. Yes, the marginal costs of an ebook are so close to zero as to be almost indistinguishable. But if you have $20,000 in sunk costs, you're losing money unless you can make that back - so if there's a market for (say) 10,000 copies of the book, you need to charge, on average, over $2 a copy just to break even (yes, over two dollars - because there's an opportunity cost in sinking the money into books; if it takes ten years to make back the $20,000, you've lost money, even though on paper you've broken even, because of that opportunity cost - typically charged by banks as interest.)
So I expect to see the publishers of books take full advantage of the inherent price flexibility of electronic books by pushing the prices up high to start, and gradually dropping them until they're selling for maybe a couple of bucks a pop ... because that way, they'll make more money, which means they can publish more books for us to read.
Re:Price??!? (Score:5, Insightful)
If only there were people willing to do that work for free...
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ [gutenberg.org]
http://books.google.com/ [google.com]
Re:This just in... (Score:4, Insightful)
I say fine. The sooner all the publishers band together and collude with Steve Jobs to raise book prices and dictate the Retail price the sooner the DOJ can step in and smack them down for price fixing.
Where does Jobs fit into this? I mean, apart from conspiracy theories and what you reckon might happen.
And while I'm at it, the history of Apple's music sales is that they kept the prices down. The music industry wanted variable pricing, with new songs around $2.50 instead of $0.99.
Murdoch is way out on this, arguing against capitalism itself.
Re:Just let Ebooks die already (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Books vs. E-books (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny. I prefer my Kindle for the exact same reason. There's just something I love about sitting on a recliner with my Kindle in my hands, turning the pages as I read, without having to worry about holding down the pages so that the pages don't close on me or damaging the spines of the books permanently by opening up the pages too much.
I'd rather very much focus on the book and its content, as I can with Kindle (or any ebook reader with reflective screen, really), not how I am struggling with its physical manifestation.
Re:More context for that study. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blogs are almost by definition sources of opinion, not news. There is a big difference between the two. If they called it "Fox Televised Blogs" or "Fox Biased Opinions" then I would feel that they were being fair (in their title) but unbalanced. What is most irksome is that they are calling it news when it is actually opinions and propaganda.
I don't see how the context you provide makes it "not nearly as bad". The bottom of the pile is people who get no (non-local) news at all. The next rung up is people who get one-sided versions from blogs and Fox News and then above that is people who get their news from quasi-legitimate news sources.
At least Fox is rather blatant about being totally corporate controlled. The other so-called news sources, NYT, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, etc. are also corporate controlled but they are just a bit more subtle about it. I haven't looked at the study but I don't consider anyone who gets their news solely from American mainstream media to be well informed.
Re:Okay (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this NOT price fixing?
How is what not price-fixing? Murdoch's desire to sell goods for a higher price, or Amazon's desire to sell them for $9.99 or less?
In both cases, the answer is no. Price fixing is when an oligarchy of industry players collude to set prices. A single player desiring certain prices is not price fixing.
Of Course it devalues Books (Score:4, Insightful)
The real issue here is that Murdoch and other redundant publishers no longer get to control the scarcity in the market, plus with the lowered cost barriers to market entry, a LOT more fish are now feeding in the same pond.
You have it backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
Price fixing is when multiple producers of a similar product collude to fix the price at which all of them will sell.
That's essentially what Amazon is trying to do.
It's not price fixing to sell to your wholesale customers in a contractual arrangement that includes a retail price floor.
This is called business.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
To make it worse, he has no excuse. The music industry does, they were the first to miss the boat on digital content. The movie industry should have caught on, but somehow didn't. The publishers should really have been able to figure it out; they had fair warning and opportunity and, seemingly, just couldn't connect the dots.
Big Content screwed up and is on the way out no matter how much they complain. Books are absolutely here to stay, but the profit model is shifting. Hopefully the huge economies of scale afforded by e-Books will allow the authors to profit more than under the current model. In any case, Amazon is sure to come out on top for the near future.
I don't quite agree with the analogy with music. People were downloading music files en masse and the recording industry was still refusing to budge their business model from the good ol' CD days. We had ipods in Australia before we had any real ability to buy music online (legally). With books, the situation is different - how many people download books compared with how many people buy them? This is not consumer-driven - it is a reaction of the publishers who can see the writing on the wall with the ever-improving technology of ebook readers.
My other issue with the book/music comparison is that bands can use give-away (or sold very cheaply) music to promote the other things that make money for them (tours, merchandise etc). Writers (and I'm thinking here of literary writers) don't have the capacity to do that.
Re:Just let Ebooks die already (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're seen the e-ink based electronic book reader such as the Sony Reader, I have to disagree with you. With e-ink, the text is very sharp and readable, and the weight of the PRS-600 Sony Reader with touchscreen interface is around 10 ounces--lighter than many hardback novels nowadays. If you're going on a trip and plan to read a lot, lot easier to carry one PRS-600 than carrying a whole bunch of books.
Re:Books vs. E-books (Score:3, Insightful)
ASCII text
Re:This just in... (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering that a physical book can't be "deleted", I don't know. e-books are allright, I supposed, but it's kind of dangerous to think about a world without any physical books. The Nazis burned books, there would be no need with all digital systems, just as was done with the kindle, they can be deleted, even remotely.
Then, there is also the privacy issues of digital media. You cannot track what physical books someone is reading, yet with all of the horrendous absuses that have been dealt to our freedoms and privacy by tech companies, it is especially conserning to think of an all digital medium as the only choice for reading. As much as a computer geek I am, I still prefer to crack open a good old fashioned book. Nothing beats it.
Re:Books vs. E-books (Score:4, Insightful)
admittedly I have yet to use the Nook or other such devices
Try an e-Ink screen. It's great. You have to read a lot to make it worth your while to buy an e-Ink reader, but unless you're one of the few who can read LCD all day and all night without eyestrain, it's a real pleasure to use.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Murdoch is not simply the old dinosaur; this is merely another case of one form of extremism (loads of cheap ebooks) begets another (kill ebooks).
Both models have their place, or in the words of Thomas Edison
"We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."
Personally, I can't wait to find a decent ebook reader - don't like what I have seen in the Sony ones available in Europe. Might go for the iPad instead. But on the other hand, I still want paper books - I find there is something very calming in holding and reading a paper book, on a medium where you neither have to worry about power (eventually) running out, nor do you have the temptation of quite as easily switching back and forth between different books, ... It's more effort to change the (physical) book, and hence I find it more likely to actually stick to it. For work-related/reference books I want the ebook reader, for novels etc. I don't.
But unlike Murdoch (or people wishing the end of paper books), I won't go for eliminating either form, as I can see the advantages of both.
Not mentioned that often in the context of ebooks - I remember reading a short story as part of my school English lessons, which seemed to predict 'ebooks' - and it was written in the 50s: Isaac Asimov's The Fun They Had ( http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html [aber.ac.uk] )
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. Books are here to stay.
His real problem is a different one. With ebooks, many of the people living in the ecosystem BETWEEN the author and the reader are superfluous with ebooks.
If I like Neil Gaiman, and I read his blog. And he makes a new book, which is a pdf.
What do the two of us need anyone else for ? I can send him some cash, he can send me the book, end of story.
That's not an ending that Mr. Murdoch likes though, because it makes him irrelevant.
Well Yeh (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure ebooks hurt the retail merchants but so what? Industries are not protected nor should they be. Buggy builders were slaughtered by the automobile. The telegraph industry was murdered by the telephone and computer industry. Telephone operators were blown out of work by electronic switchboards. Lawn workers were smacked down by gasoline mowers. The list is endless. So just why are we to be concerned about the loss of retail book sellers? Take a peek at movie theaters. In 1930 theaters were absolutely enormous. Today there is no such thing as a theater that seats 20,000. Soon even the small theaters that still exist will probably vanish as the television industry has better and better technology.
Uh, yeah.... (Score:5, Insightful)
... it's that the basic point... eBooks are SUPPOSED to kill paper books. Or at least replace them, for those who use eBooks. Who will more every year, particularly once the proprietary formats fail and eBooks can be ready by every eBook reader.
As for Hardcover prices... well, there's a difference between the quality and longevity of a hardcover versus the paperback. That's the only true value of the hardcover book. The rest is marketing... the early release... like seeing a film in the theater now, or waiting for the DVD or Blu-Ray later... or the HBO presentation later still.
But that's not true of an eBook... there is virtually no cost of duplication, far cheaper to make than paperbacks. And more restricted, at least with DRM; you can't resell them, or lend them in any real way. You may not be able to annotate them, either. Thus, much less value than a paperback, in the same way that MP3 and AACs are of lower value -- the product itself, then a CD. Some value may be regained at the point-of-sale; they're sold in other ways: singles and impulse... I can buy a piece of a CD, and have it right now. That keeps the basic individual price relative high.. and yet, I've still managed to buy whole MP3 albums on Amazon for $2-$4 each. Which is about the right value, versus an $8-12 CD, or $15-$20 SACD or DVD-Audio Disc.
It's understandable that the publishers don't like this, in general. For one, they understand hardcovers and paperbacks, but can't quite get their heads wrapped around an eBook as being something different. They want it to be a hardcover, Amazon wants it to be a paperback, but delivered at about the same time as a hardcover. I think, in reality, this is a different form, and needs to be treated as such. For one, there are lots of publisher's expenses associated with a hardcover: printing fees, distribution, in-store kiosks, maybe shelving fees, etc. All of these, at the very least, should be subtracted from the retail price and the publisher's piece of the book sale. Otherwise, they're going to be using this as a trick to increase revenues, even though they're performing significantly less of a service.
And in fact, that's the real issue here. The book publishing industry has never been quite as abusive of "the talent" as the record industry, but they still want the bulk of profits if they can get it. If I buy a book, it still lists the author's copyright... most CDs will claim a copyright by the record company, despite their being just another kind of publisher. This has resulted in push-back by artists, some self-publishing, some going all digital or mostly digital. That works, particularly for established artists (Prince, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, etc). The rise of eBooks will enable this same route by writers. Maybe not for awhile.. the eBook reader is a relative new thing, but already at some level of acceptance due to the use of general purpose computers, just as the walkman and similar personal stereos laid the ground for an easy acceptance, then dominance, of the MP3 player/PMP.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
We once had to cut down trees to dispense news and information then carry/freight/ship it around the whole world just so that people could use it. But none of that's been true for us since the last century and none of our children will ever remember otherwise. I guess I wish I was so important that if I complained loudly enough (or legally enough) everyone around me would pretend everything was business as normal too.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Where does Jobs fit in? (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs fits in because he is now selling eBooks to iPad users at a price agreed with the publishers. While this may smack of "cartel", Amazon's no better -- selling books at a knock-down price to encourage people to buy the expensive Kindle, with the single-minded goal of gaining a monopoly on the market. Looking at the case of MacMillan, Amazon were selling at 66% of the RRP for the eBook. As I understand it, if this became standard pricing, the publishers and authors would end up with less money than for a paper book sale. Technological improvements should reward creators with increased profit and reward consumers with reduced prices.
HAL.
Re:Ok by me... (Score:4, Insightful)
5) Being able to change the fonts type and its size.
Edison model different (Score:4, Insightful)
Both models have their place, or in the words of Thomas Edison "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."
You are mis-interpreting Edison - this statement does not at all represent the Murdoch model. If it did Edison would have said "We will make electricity so cheap that the candlemakers will have us banned". All Edison is saying is that if they can make electricity cheap enough then, given its inherent advantage over candles, why would anyone want to use them? He is not suggesting that anything be forced upon people like Murdoch is i.e. he is not saying that he wants to kill candles, just that most people will probably not want to use them in most cases because electricity will be so much cheaper.
This is exactly what I think will happen with books: nobody wants to set out to deliberately kill paper books but in the future I would imagine that only very popular "classic" books will end up in physical, high quality bindings and that the cheap paperback novels of today will be replaced by electronic media simply because eBooks are cheaper to make and more convenient.
Re:Prices (Score:3, Insightful)
"....blah blah blah about why ebooks should be almost as expensive as real ones..."
Bullshit.
Double Bullshit, in fact.
See, the point you're overlooking is that the costs you mention are FLAT.
What the author is paid for his intellectual and (very hard) work is a flat amount. Note, I of course recognize that this isn't true in the real world, most authors are paid a floating number - this make sense, as they are 'sharing' the profit over time, mainly so that the publishers can pay them less to start. They're wagering the book will be unsuccessful, in a sense. This is the publisher's choice, unless you are a supremely successful artist. But on the face of it, the author does a finite amount of work, and in a normal situation, would be paid a finite amount.
Marketing, editing, all that stuff - could all be accounted as one-time costs.
But in a real, paper book, every book takes setup time, printing time, and raw materials to make. So for every book, there is an incremental increase in cost.
Not so with ebooks. You can pay the finite costs, and (aside from server time) it costs you no more to 'sell' a billion copies.
So arithmatically, the idea that ebooks should somehow be tied to this concept of infinite lucrative return despite fixed costs is truly, truly bullshit.
It's what makes the music/book/software world absolutely nonsensical to the rest of us who merely get paid for the work we do, and don't expect eternal compensation for something we did last year.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be all over ebooks IF I can do the following...
move the ebooks to my new reader from a DIFFERENT COMPANY without contacting someone.
Share an ebook with my wife on HER READER.
Sell my used ebooks at a used ebook store.
The first two they can do, they choose not to. The last, they want used book stores to die, they hate the idea of anyone buying their "precious" second hand.
Re:Edison model different (Score:4, Insightful)
You got it the wrong way round -
I did not mean that Murdoch represents the Edison model - it's closer to the ebook model (ebooks cheaper, therefore only 'rich' will buy them on paper), i.e. the printed book is becoming the 'niche' product to read (just as candles are now almost a 'niche' product to provide lighting).
Re:More context for that study. (Score:1, Insightful)
The study shows that people who get most of their news from Fox News are about as poorly informed as people who get their news from blogs and you don't see that as devastating indictment of Fox New?
No actually the study shows nothing like that. Details matter. They asked whether they were "regular" or "not" views of fox news, those that marked "regular" also as a statistical average scored low. But in no way did they say "exclusively" from fox news. In fact FTA :
"Nearly everyone (94%) said they regularly get news from at least one of the news sources listed, and the average number of sources regularly used was between four and five".
For goodness sack The Daily Show and the Colbert Report had the highest association (correct answers for regular viewers with 54%). Are you going to suggest that these two programs offer the best source of news??
As an asside, I might argue that putting the news in an entertainment format might make it easier for audiences to remember (and score high on this quiz).
Before you bash fox news too much remember that O'reilly Factor scored high as well (51%) compared to the top mediums The Daily Show/Colbert (54%) and Major Newspaper Websites (54%). Fox News got (35%) and CNN got (41%).
I understand that you really, really want some study to verify that Fox News causes "the stupid" because they have a point of view that is completely opposite your own. But this study really isn't the one.