Study says Fox News’ brand is losing clout with Republicans

The home of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity may be getting less love from Republicans, according to a new study.

The Fox News Channel has dropped off the list of the top 10 best-perceived brands among Republicans, said research firm YouGov, which interviewed more than 200,000 people over eight weeks, and filtered their responses by party affiliation.

This comes after the network has topped the YouGov list for the last three years, the only prior years in which the company has conducted this survey. According to the latest results, Fox News now ranks at No. 11, a drop that YouGov suggested may have been affected by Barack Obama’s successful reelection bid in 2012.

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In ratings, Fox News has a strong lead over its competitors CNN and MSNBC in prime time. The channel recently shuffled its prime-time lineup to make room for a new show hosted by Megyn Kelly, who has been delivering a big audience for Fox News. About one month in, she has the No. 2 show on cable news, according to Nielsen, trailing only O’Reilly.

As for the rest of the YouGov survey, the current most popular brand with Republicans is the tool-maker Craftsman, followed by home improvement retailer Lowe’s and healthcare company Johnson & Johnson. For Democrats, tech titan Google tops the list, coming in ahead of Amazon.com, which is also the No. 1 brand among independents and No. 5 with GOP supporters.

There’s plenty of overlap, with Clorox, Dawn, Johnson & Johnson, Home Depot and Cheerios appearing on all three lists.

PBS makes an appearance on the Democrat rankings, while the History Channel appeals to Republicans.

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ryan.faughnder@latimes.com