NBC's 'Meet the Press' losing its Sunday talk ratings lead

"Face the Nation" had 2.83 million viewers for its April 20 show and "This Week" had 2.79 million.
Sure, the iconic "Meet the Press" maintains a lead with its 3.24 million that same week, but the gap is shrinking.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/05/meet-the-press.html

The ratings will only get worse.

made that any of the Sunday morning news talk programs are beginning to lose their zip and their zap.

A lot of people might be thinking, "Well, hell. I'll just skip the Sunday news shows and work in the garden instead."

Or listen to some Emmylou Harris.

Or check out a local museum.

Or just about anything else at all.

questions over and over.

We'd get better follow-up questions that D.J. Dancing David Gregory gives.

and I didn't think that was possible.

He was as big an enabler to the Bush fiasco as Limbaugh, IMO.

I had enough before the election. I used to watch it religiously for many years. Not no more.

Just a thought, a bad one.

gregory creeps me out, and you're right, it isn't news.

How;s that workin out for ya Tom?

And never forget this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw

Lame questions with little or no challenging or follow up. Why watch?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/29/gregory/

"Several months before he was named as moderator of Meet the Press, David Gregory went on MSNBC to categorically reject Scott McClellan's accusations that the American media failed to scrutinize the Bush administration's pre-war claims. Gregory vigorously praised the job which he and his "journalistic" colleagues did in the run-up to the Iraq War -- the period which Salon's Gary Kamiya called "one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media." Proclaimed Gregory, with a straight face: "Questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the President. Not only those of us in the White House Press Corps did that, but others in the media landscape did that." Most revealingly of all, Gregory said:

I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role.

Indeed. Perish the thought that a reporter should point out when government officials are making "bogus" claims and are lying a country into a war. That is "not their role," says the New Tim Russert (and, unsurprisingly, the Old Tim Russert wholeheartedly agreed). I don't know whether Gregory's public advocacy for a meek and polite press corps that would never be so rude as to point out when government leaders are lying is what sealed the deal for his new promotion to Meet the Press -- a show which centrally depends on having powerful politicians know that they can come on and, as Dick Cheney's top communications aide put it, "control the message." But I'm quite sure that it didn't hurt."

And NBC found their man in David Gregory. Russert, who famously said that his default setting whenever he picked up the phone was "off the record," was always good for a stroking and a happy ending to an establishment figure in trouble, and especially so when the party affiliation began with an "R".

David Gregory, who briefly flirted with being an actual journalist, soon learned the proper deference and way to get along with the power elite. The same old guests, the same old comfortable questions, and no follow-up or probing whatsoever. Guests know they'll get a nice ego massage and power stroke from David Gregory, not quite as good as Russert (yet), but he's learning week by week. The craven and the criminal know they have nothing to fear from David Gregory.

They may bump him up sooner than later if this continues.

If CBS had any balls, they're replace her with Cenk (TYT), or Dan (Rather).

His questions as their WH correspondent have been laugh-out-loud bad.

Chuckie is fucking TERRIBLE...

that in order to get people on the Sunday shows, they give them the questions in advance for prep and approval. I didn't know if I believed it until I watched for several weeks with that in mind. It became obvious that almost all of the stuff was almost scripted. Not once in a year of watching did I get any real information from those shows - just talking points and pr.

I've said that before, evidently NBC isn't listening. :shrug: :rofl:

no thanks. Eight years + of that diet is enough for me. I gave up on Sunday morning tv all together, unless Ceasar's on.

My blood pressure went down 20 pts., while my IQ went up 20.

Like,
Oh, I don't know.

How about...

Bill Moyers maybe?

That's right.
He's a dirty fucking liberal.

And he's doing the best work of his life on PBS every Friday night.

BUT, we couldn't have THAT could we?

JOURNALISTS and stop having one right winger run the show.

It would make for much more interesting television. A constantly changing panel of actual journalists - NOT columnists and op-ed shills.

:puke: :thumbsdown:

....make his dream come true.