NYT: MSNBC Nods to Ratings and Leans LEFT

Cable Channel Nods to Ratings and Leans Left
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: November 6, 2007

Riding a ratings wave from “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” a program that takes strong issue with the Bush administration, MSNBC is increasingly seeking to showcase its nighttime lineup as a welcome haven for viewers of a similar mind. Lest there be any doubt that the cable channel believes there is ratings gold in shows that criticize the administration with the same vigor with which Fox News’s hosts often champion it, two NBC executives acknowledged yesterday that they were talking to Rosie O’Donnell about a prime-time show on MSNBC....

But even without Ms. O’Donnell, MSNBC already presents a three-hour block of nighttime talk — Chris Matthews’s “Hardball” at 7, Mr. Olbermann at 8, and “Live With Dan Abrams” at 9 — in which the White House takes a regular beating. The one early-evening program on MSNBC that is often most sympathetic to the administration, “Tucker” with Tucker Carlson at 6 p.m., is in real danger of being canceled, said one NBC executive, who, like those who spoke of Ms. O’Donnell, would do so only on condition of anonymity....

***

....as its most recognizable face, MSNBC has marshaled behind Mr. Olbermann, who on July 3, in an eight-minute “special comment” at the close of his show, addressed President Bush directly and called on him to resign. Two months later, the channel chose Mr. Olbermann to serve as the principal host of its coverage of a major prime-time address by Mr. Bush.

Mr. Olbermann’s “special comments” — more than 20 in the last 12 months, and nearly all of them first-person editorials that find some fault with the administration — have helped increase the ratings of his program by 33 percent in just the last year, to about 773,000 viewers a night, according to Nielsen. With those ratings, Mr. Olbermann’s program surpassed “Paula Zahn Now” on CNN, which was canceled last summer.

Mr. Olbermann comes on after “Hardball” with Mr. Matthews, whose longtime opposition to the war — and to what he describes as Vice President Dick Cheney’s outsize role in the administration — has become only more pointed since he took on the title of managing editor of his broadcast over the summer....Even Joe Scarborough, once a conservative congressman from Florida who stood behind President Bush during a campaign rally in 2004, has seemed to have a change of heart about his fellow Republicans in recent months, as is obvious to viewers of “Morning Joe,” his new morning show on MSNBC. In recent weeks, he could be heard praising Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s outreach to the military and her husband’s accomplishments as an ex-president, sentiments that, he acknowledged, had surprised even him....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/business/media/06msnb.html?hp

the Truth is winning out

:D

Please, oh please, please, please...!

:headbang:

I have been hoping and praying that SOME programming exec would finally put this tiresome, smug, twerpy, smart-ass little snot-nose out of his misery - AND OURS. PLEASE retire tucker, NOW. The sooner the better.

How the hell did he get his own show in the first place? Who decided he should be on the air every day with his arrogant holier-than-thou attitude? And this goes all the way back to when he was on CNN. WHY? Whatever qualified him to host a cable or network show of his own? Who thought he was qualified to do that to begin with? Can we PLEASE send him back?

It is time Rachael Maddow had a television show of her own.

There's no way Rosie deserves a show over Maddow.

Frankly I don't think Rosie would even be very good in that format.

I would love to see Rachel have her own show!

Rosie? Not so much.

Rachel Maddow is VERY well spoken, logical, rational, and usually not emotional. She has her facts lined up, and zings it in every time. Rosie, on the other hand, is more sarcastic, and more "showy".

This is the same way that the ESTABLISHMENT fucked up integration and affirmative action. They appointed people, or caused situations that INFLAMED, rather than informed.

Don't get me wrong... I really, personally, enjoy Rosie a lot. She's a liberal, through and through, and she can rip the right wingers a new one with a joke & a laugh. But Maddow is news/journalist more than entertainer. Rosie is more entertainer. And the PROBLEM we've had since the rightwingers took over the media corporations and all the news channels, print & radio, is that they're not delivering news, and not providing journalists who line up their facts and do their research.

And ya know what? I think we need to let MSNBC know that we're SERIOUS about the news, and that's why their ratings are going up. We don't need to be entertained while the Titanic is sinking, thank you very much.

she's smart and well-informed and usually does well in the sound-byte world that is the news these days.

However, Rosie would get them a lot of publicity, at least in the short-term.

:thumbsup:

She really was not happy doing the vid thing. To restrictive, she said. Besides, we'd all have to experience an additional level of sensory exposure to Chris, the RW tool. ;-)

do NOT give Rosie a show!! Look, I liked her fine on the View, it was the first and last time I watched it was when she was on. But she does not have the mental acumen to hold serious political discussions. You would just be shooting yourself in the foot. You've got a good thing going, don't screw it up. If any decision makers are reading this:

HIRE RACHEL MADDOW!

Alison Stewart?

have someone on our side not so controversial.

Just let Rosie goe on before Keith and Rachel goes on afterwards.

Now it we can get Steff to take or someone else to take over the Morning Joe slot (like Marc or Sam) things would be perfect

so that I could have cable to my computer, but I watch, Keith, faithfully when I go down to my mom's house. BTW my first born son's name is, Keith. A good solid name.

He no longer fit in.

He got the morning gig after the Imus debacle. He is just a smarmy as ever.

I never did take any interest in following his career. All I knew was that he wasn't on after KO any more.

fest show like Rosie would put on.

She is BRILLIANT!!!

A much better choice than Rosie O'Donnell.

They'll never do it, though. Mike is like a reality check on steroids. Too many people's heads would explode.

They offer-- at best-- occasional and shallow criticism of an openly criminal administration. Matthews swooned over Bush's codpiece, for crying out loud.

Read the entire article for one of the reasons why that is the case. I have always liked Chris anyhow, but he is even better now. More left leaning than ever, except for his hatred of the Clintons...especially Hillary as of late. And I do love myself some Clintons, but I like Chris alot too.

for several months now. More left leaning than ever?

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Of course the MSM. MSNBC is owned by NBC, which is in turn owned by GE.

GE, big defense contractor, liberal friendly? Sorry, but something smells here. Maybe they want to "keep their friends close, and their enemies even closer?"

He has game show host written all over him.

Perhaps Schuster can replace(F)ucker and Maddow can get Abram's slot.

one way or another. We should be able to get actual news from said news networks. And we don't. We get Patis, Britney, the latest white missing girl/murdered attractive woman story, etc. So the idea that a network is going to say, "Hey, let's go liberal to attract voters" doesn't sit well with me. To me it's just one more sign that journalism as we know it and as it should be is dead and/or dying. Fox was the beginning and I guess Liberal MSNBC is the next logical step but they are both symptomatic of what's wrong with journalism and television journalism in the 21st Century. Why don't they do something really daring and bold and put on real news, without the biases, without the opinions, and without the celebrity fluff, trial de jour, and all that bullshit? Wow, how radical a notion is that?

Beyond that, for our official representative do we really want the likes of Rosie? Uh, sorry, I don't think so. Batshit crazy doesn't scream "reputable spokesperson" to me.

I'm barely old enough to remember Viet Nam and Watergate, but I do remember unbiased reporting and would love to see it return big time.

Not very likely though. My kid will likely never be a news junkie the way I was at his age.

But at this point, with the right wing dominating TV news for a number of years now, the mere fact that any liberals are getting on at all is a positive step.

on their outright criminal behavior "Left"?


Have they not seen Chimpy and Co.s approval ratings??The truth isn't Left.The fact that they are reporting accurately speaks of Democracy not of the "Left".