MSNBC ratings in the tank

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings-msnbc-falls-below-559923

Behind HLN even.

I watch it quite a bit. I'm not sure why.

What do you think?

One observation I have is that at least the people on Fox News were happy when W was in office. Not now, of course. But MSNBC got their guy elected, so they should be happy. But they're not.

 

A perpetual change in the broadcasters, and the ones they do have now, aren't very good.

Outside of Maddow and um....the loud guy....seriously, what the hell is his name?

Oh yeah, matthews..anyways, outside of those two, the rest of their group is like the JV team of broadcasters.

 

Salon.com circles the wagons.

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/27/whats_wrong_with_msnbc/singleton/?dtoc

 

Around election time, the thinking on the left was that MSNBC has a deep bench, while Fox trots out the same hosts, day after day.

Salon hit on part of what makes MSNBC good for me. It's basically 24/7 political talk shows, except weekends when they show documentaries. I love documentaries, but I can't at all get into the MSNBC ones.

If anything, MSNBC is overly predictable. The hosts are really left wing. The guests are really left wing. Morning Joe has one republican type while it parades a dozen or more lefty talking heads on camera over 3 hours.

Michael Steele, former Md governor and RNC chairman is a recurring contributor.

Fox News, for all its faults, has numerous liberals on, even as regular contributors. In theory, that would give them broader appeal.

The Fox News morning show mentioned in the Salon piece is godawful.

 

Actually, their ratings went up. Olbermann hasn't done squat for anyone's ratings since.

 

FWIW, I think this is a pretty big story.

If you've followed MSNBC, you'll know they recently split with Microsoft, claiming they were being held back. Microsoft had poured several hundred $million into the venture over time.

To cut costs, they have no news people. They run those documentaries for about 1/3 of the hours in a week so they don't have to pay so much staff.

Their hosts are likely very well paid. Chris Matthews certainly makes bank.

 

I do like Michael Steele, now that he's not a puppet or the Republican Party.

can't stand David Axelrod, Al Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell.

The only ones I did like were Maddow, Matthews and Olbermann...and I rarely watch any of them now anyways. Olbermann had his strong moments, and his a little hyperbole moments.

The replacements for Keith (Schultz, Hayes (? Haynes? the nerdy guy with glasses) and Lawrence O'donnell) all are boring people, imho.

Thats why their ratings are sup-par. Not what they're reporting, but how they report it. It's why Ted Koppels show was on at 11:30 instead of prime time.

 

I like Sharpton a lot.

O'Donnell was a writer for 7 years and then Executive Producer of the TV show, "The West Wing." He should know what good television is...

 

I watch a bit of C-SPAN. Yeah, I'm a junkie.

But look at HuffPost. Very popular site. All headlines are throwing bombs at republicans. Every thread has thousands, if not tens of thousands of posts. Sam Stein, Ariana Huffington, and others from that site are regulars on MSNBC.

Ed Schultz is back hosting a show. He's got a radio talk show.

You'd think they have enough pull to get their followers to watch the station.

 

The need for a Fox News counterbalance has always seemed unnecessary. Fox News aptly demonstrates what's wrong with punditry and the 24-hour fear and false outrage cycle on it's own.

CNN is also spiraling. Dunno what their ratings are like but it seems like week after week they are going out of their way to embarrass themselves.

 

Sharpton, to me, is just like someone who has to yell/talk loud to prove a point.

Lawrence may have been a writer on West Wing, but that doesn't mean Aaron Sorkin would make a good tv host.