NPR’s David Folkenflik reports (and has the comments section at NPR.org buzzing) how Fox News has been getting “crazy high” ratings for a news channel since President Barack Obama took office. “There were a couple of people who basically wrote about our demise come last November [and] December and were, I guess, rooting for us to go away,” says FNC SVP Bill Shine.

Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of the left-of-center magazine The Nation, isn’t surprised. “It’s a rallying point for people who feel that they’re not represented at the highest levels of power,” he says.

Says Folkenflik: “If some of Fox’s most famous figures feel as though they’re on the outside looking in, there are a lot of viewers keeping them company.”