MSNBC’s entire late afternoon lineup is apparently getting the axe.
A well-placed source tells me MSNBC will announce today major changes to its afternoon lineup…arguably the most significant revamp the network has made at one time in its 19-year history.
Out:The Cycle at 3:00 PM. Now with Alex Wagner at 4:00 PM. The Ed Show with Ed Schultz at 5:00 PM (all times eastern).
Guess who’s baaaaaaack?
In:Chuck Todd at 5:00 PM. Similar to Jake Tapper at CNN doing both weekday afternoons (hosting The Lead) and anchoring Sunday morning’s State of the Union, Todd will also continue to work weekends as moderator of Sunday’s Meet the Press. Todd’s MSNBC show will likely take on its old name The Daily Rundown, but that is not a guarantee.
More interesting: Andrea Mitchell will keep her program at noon (Andrea Mitchell Reports). Thomas Roberts will continue to anchor his midday news program from 1:00-3:00 PM. The programs being cancelled at 3:00 PM (The Cycle) and 4:00 PM (Now with Alex Wagner) will be replaced by a straight news program (similar to Roberts’ two-hour newscast preceding it). Whether that 3:00-5:00 PM slot goes to Brian Williams is not known at this time, but it would certainly make the most sense to put Williams directly up against Fox’s Shepard Smith (Shepard Smith Reporting) and CNN’s Brooke Baldwin (CNN Newsroom) for the first hour in a similar format.
Yeah, because MSNBC’s problem is that it needs more Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd, and Brian Williams.
Jeebus wept. They actually found the one person I’m willing to watch less than Ed “boycott the midterms” Schultz.
And yes, the bullseye is now squarely on the backs of Al Sharpton and Chris Hayes. Maybe you guys can bring in three hours of Tweety while you’re at it. That’ll get the kids running in from miles around.
Keith P
The Goatee of Seriousness wins again!
dr. bloor
Williams v. Smith v. Baldwin. We’re approaching Critical Derp, Captain Kirk!
japa21
Pure programming geniuses at MSNBC.
That is if the purpose of progamming is to lower your ratings.
Kerry Reid
Go. Buy bullets. KILL cable pundits.
Scott S.
Y’all elect me president, and I promise that Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper, and Andrea Mitchell will all end their careers as the center of attention in a big, hard, humming chair.
Kropadope
As I was reading, I realized there was basically nothing MSNBC could do to get me watching.
rikyrah
Zandar, you are on the money.
Ejoiner
You know what I hate? When arguing with conservatives who are FOX bots and you criticize the network (rightfully so) and their rejoinder is always “well, your network MSNBC is just as bad with it’s liberal propaganda” etc. etc.
I don’t watch MSNBC. None of my friends do. No one I know does – so why do we have to get smeared with its stink!?
Ryan
They seem determined to absolutely wreck the one thing they had going for them, their image as a lackluster Fox for the left. I’m not a big fan of Sharpton, buy Hayes I am. His problem is that he covers too much to do it as well as he could when he was the host of Up, where he had 2 hours.
But actually, I got rid of cable a year ago and don’t miss MSNBC at all, so you do what you want (don’t fire Rachel though).
JPL
I like Alex Wagner. Congrats go to Chris Hayes for two emmy nominations. I assume he’ll be next to get the ax.
Bill
Maddow is the only thing worth watching on MSNBC anymore.
JPL
@Ryan: You can stream it. link
CaseyL
Eh, I think they’ve given up on attracting younger viewers, because younger viewers just aren’t tuning in to TV news. Any TV news. Period.
So MSNBC is fighting for the same demo that lifts Fox News – which is the only one still watching TV news, basically: aging Baby Boomers and their parents.
different-church-lady
@Ejoiner: Part of the reason abusive personalities are abusive is because they cannot comprehend of a world where there are other kinds of behavior. So they live by eat or be eaten — “I must abuse or else I will be abused” is the only world they understand.
So it is with Fox-addicts. In their minds there’s no such thing as a person with political views who isn’t addicted to the cable-linked idiot box. Therefore, if you disagree with them, you must be addicted to the inverse version of what they’re addicted to.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope:
Ah, you’re responding quite nicely to the treatments. Now we just have to bring this cure to the broader public and we can stamp out cable news in our lifetime.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Cycle was always a little too cute for me, but I like Alex Wagner. I caught a few minutes of Ed Schultz yesterday and he seemed giddy about that bad poll for Clinton. I’m only surprised that haven’t given Luke Russert a full hour to smirk and stammer at the camera. I guess Brian Williams contract was loophole-less
dan
Al Sharpton is the worst and it is an embarrassment that he has a daily show on MSNBC. He’s like paprika; a sprinkling here and there on other shows brings something that can be great. But no one needs a constant serving of nothing but paprika. Mumble-mouthed, malaprop-prone paprika. An hour a day. Every day.
Big ole hound
@Ejoiner: Right on. That stink of daytime newsie stuff smell just like bullshit.
Mike E
@Keith P: That Spock rocked!
Kropadope
@Ejoiner:
They watch cable news so, dipso fatso, all liberals must watch the liberal cable news equivalent.
cmorenc
MOAR REALITY PRISON SHOWS in prime-time is what MSNBC needs. It’s a lot more fun watching imprisoned sociopaths throwing food and shit at guards and screaming at them and getting sent to isolation units, than to watch sociopaths in Congress throwing shit and screaming, with no danger of getting sent to isolation units. As to the segments on hard-core violent gang menbers in prison where they’re no further threat to society – same thing; less depressing than watching segments on hard-core GOP gang-members threatening society in Washington wanting to send other people’s kids to the MidEast to fight to reinforce the GOP gang-members dick-swaggering manhood.
different-church-lady
@cmorenc:
I’m thinking CROSSOVER! SYNERGY!
Zandar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jesus hell, no. I will cut people to prevent that.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ryan: Hayes was so good in that longer weekend format. He used the time to cover stuff in depth rather than talking about the horserace. You can see him now trying to do the same thing with his several reports on California water, for instance, but it’s tougher.
Joel
It’s too bad congressional folks watch this crap, because no one else does.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Joel: I think it was Atrios who went on some bloggers’ tour of (Dem) congressional offices back when someone told the about these things called “blogs” in 2005 or so, and every office had a TV, and every TV was on CNN.
ETA: MSNBC around that time was still featuring Norah O’Donnell, who I remember angrily scold-questioning Cindy Sheehan about why she was so vocal criticizing a “very popular president!”. The Bush decline was well underway and he was polling in the low 40s at the time.
Felonius Monk
Is it too much to hope that they shitcan Tweety?
redshirt
Saw this bumper sticker yesterday and chuckled: “I DON’T BELIEVE THE LIBERAL MEDIA!”
All caps. A classic.
Patrick
@Ejoiner:
All you have to counter with is three hours in the morning of Republican Joe Scarborough. Last time I checked, FoxNews don’t have a three hour morning show hosted by a Democrat.
Chris
@CaseyL:
That’s certainly my case. Although I think I’d be much more open to it if TV news wasn’t basically a choice between The Right Wing Media and The People Trying To Prove To The Right Wing Media That We’re Not So Different After All. But yes, I realize that technology means my generation is less TV prone in general.
Iowa Old Lady
Holy crap. At this very moment, I’m listening to Rachel from last night. Santorum is a crazy man, but you knew that. The part I can’t believe is where he says the Supreme Court doesn’t decide which laws are constitutional.
Chris
@redshirt:
Well… yeah. I don’t believe in the liberal media either; a liberal media is about as plausible as the Loch Ness Monster and a good deal less entert… oh. Oh, “I don’t believe THE liberal media!” Right.
Pogonip
@Ejoiner: Have you tried asking innocently, “What’s MSNBC? Is that a sports network?”
redshirt
@Chris: Where is this LIBERAL MEDIA? Mother Jones?
Also, if you’re still watching the news at all, stop. Your life will improve and you can find out everything you need to know on the internet.
Sloegin
It would be cheaper for MSNBC to be a 24-hr prison channel, since that’s what they want to be anyway.
ruemara
I’m more tired of people whining about MSNBC being considered liberal and the pointing out how they don’t watch tv/gave up tv/don’t watch cable news. For some, this is as close as they get to news that isn’t Fox or Fox-lite. Within the elderly black community, they actually appreciated Sharpton. I’m fine with Rachael being on, I just wish there was a liberal propaganda outlet doing 24/7 spewing just like Fox is. That’s why they have the numbers they do. But, the billionaires are not on our side.
Sherparick
Apparently MSNBC is going to compete with CNN for the old, white, but not crazy enough to watch Fox News demographic. Basically, MSNBC as a business plan and proposition has gone off the rails since it let Keith Olbermann go, who despite his many faults and ego the size of the Pacific Ocean, did provide interesting TV. But apparently, Comcast C-Suite considered him persona non grata from the start and he had to go after the merger.
LWA
@different-church-lady:
OK OK just hear me out , coz I’m a just spit balling alright?
Chuck Todd , Luke Russert and Tweety all in a maximum security prison where each week they compete with other sociopathic gangs for food and cigarettes. Then the viewers vote on who gets shanaked in the showers.
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
I checked Santorum’s Wikipedia entry. It says he’s a lawyer. Dear me.
Tom G
Yeah I’m one of the “I only watch Rachel these days” crowd. I hope they don’t fire her, but honestly she’d probably have no trouble getting another gig if they were stupid enough to do that. I actually like Ed and Chris, but I just can’t be bothered to watch anyone other than Rachel.
Iowa Old Lady
MSNC hosts like Ed, Sharpton, and even Rachel, have areas they’re especially interested in and cover more than other hosts do. I think that’s valuable. What’s cable news for if it can’t fill in the gaps the MSM leave empty?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Meh.
Maybe celebrity talking-head news shows are finally on their way out. If so, I say “yay!”.
There isn’t enough “news”* in a day for a cable news channel to cover in a meaningful way in 6-9 hours every day. These channels shouldn’t pretend that the “news” read by Andrea is different from the “news” read by Lawrence. It just isn’t.
They need to decide whether they want to be a news outfit (if so, record a 30 minute show and then replay it throughout the day, updating it as needed), or an interview/commentary outfit (if so, have a host ask a question and then get out of the way (don’t spend 3/4 of the segment arguing with the guest about whether Uber is “sharing” or not, the way Chris Hayes did on Monday, IIRC).
People at MSNBC (and the other US cable “news” outlets) should take a look at the BBC. They’re not perfect by any means, but the people reading the headlines aren’t multi-millionaire blowhards, and the interviewers (like Stephen Sackur of “HardTalk”) know how to ask probing, important questions. They don’t pretend that news changes every 30 minutes and aren’t afraid to run video.
Rachel’s show is twice as long as it needs to be. She could do so much better if she didn’t bloviate about history from 40 years ago before getting to the point. :-( Hayes needs to stop drinking so much coffee and let his guests answer a question. The show isn’t (or shouldn’t be) about how quick-thinking he is. I rarely watch Lawrence.
In my perfect world, Ed (who I don’t like),
LarryLawrence, Rachel, Chris, and the rest would each have 2 hours on Saturday for something like the following: 10 minute news summary at the top of the hour, then 4 each 15-30 minute interviews with individual people who are experts in their fields (whatever it may be). No political talking heads who are only there to provide spin – politicians, scientists, economists, labor leaders, medical experts, etc., etc. They could tailor their shows via the choice of people they invite on. There would be enough time to get beyond sound-bites and maybe throw some light on a topic. Tweety would have something similar on Sunday for political bloviating with his buddies, for those who like such things.Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
* – Note that I’m not saying that there isn’t a mountain of important stuff that happens every single day. Stuff that an informed citizenry should know about. It’s just that, for whatever reason, it doesn’t make the cut as “news” in the US.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropadope
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Maybe they could fill some time with context, details, analysis, and explanation?
Mark
I wonder why they don’t just continually show reruns of prison programs.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kropadope: Sure, they could do that. The best way to do that is to ask experts about it, not (the way it is often done now) to show some pretty video and emotional music and outlyer man-on-the-street comments by people who aren’t experts and don’t know (much of) the whole story.
Rachel tries to do what you’re suggesting, but she spends far too much time on it (repeating herself, trying to build some drama, etc.) in the first 20 minutes of her show every night. She needs an editor.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: maybe I’m a provincial, but all the Uber discussion on MSNBC has struck me as the kind of Manhattan-centric blatherskite that makes my flyover-self a little nutty.. WE’RE GONNA GET THREE INCHES OF SNOW IN NEW YORK! and ohyeahepicdroughtcontinueswestofthatbigriverhalfwaytoLA
Hayes definitely likes the sound of his own voice, almost as much as O’Donnell (did you know he once ran the Senate?). I usually like Rachel’s background pieces, but sometimes they are barely relevant. And she seems to have stepped up her repetitive tick lately.
FlipYrWhig
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Yeah — I feel like throughout the day it should be like old-fashioned news radio or the Weather Channel, where there’s a half-hour running compilation of top stories, maybe broken up by a few exposés or long-form stories that periodically repeat, and that’s it.
(That’s based on how I watch MSNBC, which is at the gym when I’m on the elliptical machine. All I want is 30 minutes of not-entirely-mindless information. Is that typical news consumption these days?)
Do something different in prime time if you like.
There’s just no reason to have a ‘strategist” from each party say vapid things at each other, hour after hour after hour.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
That’s what they think they do now. But they have a horrible sense of what constitutes context, details, and analysis. They lean hard on pundits and strategists. Those guests provide so little “value-added” that I think they should just stop inviting them.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
MSNBC did the same thing with Chris Christie stories. Holy hell did they beat that thing into the ground. And there are only so many ways you can cover “Donald Trump said something obnoxious.” It doesn’t have to be part of all three primetime programs.
Samuel Knight
MSNBC is kinda sad.
Morning Joe is horrible. Chris Matthews is nuts.
Sharpton – Tawana Brawley makes it clear he is still a charlatan.
Hayes is brilliant but the camera really doesn’t love him. He’d be a great number 2.
Rachel is fantastic but would benefit from a #2 (see above).
Suggest move indepth specials. And yes, they are NOT left wing.
And yes, no more strategists from either party. That is boring as anything. People who know what they’re talking about, but NOT strategists.
And yes, the channel needs to reverse it’s ban on Kos – he’s pretty good on TV.
catclub
@FlipYrWhig: And they don’t have time to emulate John Oliver. Stadium giveaways. Why can’t real news shows cover that? Civil forfeiture? What else has he done? Lots , I suspect.
shell
Obviously Morning Squint is sacrosanct.
sharl
@Amir Khalid: We have LOTS of crazy people with law degrees. Orly Taitz is another example that comes to mind, although it scares me more that she also has a license to practice dentistry.
Gratuitous shout-out for the much-missed “Mrs. Polly” at Rumproast, whose surreal artistic posts IMHO captured the true essence of Orly Taitz.
FlipYrWhig
@catclub: The Now with Bill Moyers show did a lot of that. The PBS NewsHour is tried and true: not exciting, but verging on substantive. Maybe I’m suffering from projection because of how _I_ watch cable news, but I think if they thought of their audience as “people at the gym” or “people who want to know what happened today while they eat Trader Joe’s frozen entrees” rather than “retirees making a day of sitting on the couch getting riled up,” they would come up with other kinds of things to put on the air.
Tony P.
While cooking dinner, I find it easier to listen to MSNBC than read stuff on the internet. An occasional glance at the screen is sufficient to get all the info to be had visually.
What I don’t get is why the advertisers think I pay any attention to their commercials.
–TP
FlipYrWhig
@Tony P.: I’m amazed that there’s a treatment for people who are completely blind and have trouble synchronizing their sleep schedule to a 24-hour cycle. I’m also amazed that advertising for this product is so prevalent on MSNBC.
Elie
I stopped watching MSNBC over a year ago. On the west coast, only the shows I liked least (Chris Hayes, Ed and Tweetie) were on when I was most likely to watch. It is distressing to know that they are removing Alex and putting in Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell (who I despise). That network won’t be seeing me again anytime soon.
I actually watch BBC and AlJazeera in addition to a variety of other news networks, but I no longer watch MSNBC. It used to be my favorite a while ago.
JustRuss
I just pray that Chuck Todd’s awesome journalism skills won’t be diluted by having to fill 5 extra shows during the week. “Twould be a real shame to see quality of his work on MTP slip.
P.S. This being the internet, allow me to point out that the above is sarcasm.
different-church-lady
@LWA: Look, I like the feel, but it’s got no legs — once the media gang curls up in the fetal position, what are you gonna do for week 2?
sharl
@Tony P.:
This is an interesting point, and one I’ll bet has also occurred to would-be sponsors and media business managers. FOX can reasonably count on ignorant, frightened, and angry old white people paying attention to ads for home security systems and precious metals* like gold (*the only asset that will be valuable when the End Times draw nigh!). And if your “news” stories are heavily weighed toward crimes, especially the ones committed by those people – y’know, the people who are ruled over by Al Sharpton, as well as whomever is King of darkly hued Immigrants – well, that can only help to drive more people to call the ‘800’ number in the ad that will come up shortly for the home alarm system or guns/gun training or whatever. Wins all around!
I assume the continued airing of NBC’s prison show(s), as well as much of CNN’s fare of the past decade or so, comes from a coldly shrewd business decision to go after the disposable funds held by the growing baby boomer demographic. But it bodes ill for the viewing options for those of us who ignore the commercials and who select shows not based on our lizard-brain fear reflexes.
ETA: Or, what FlipYrWhig said far more succinctly.
cokane
obv Williams is problematic. And Todd has just continued his insufferable descent into lazy CW instead of digging for actual facts, which is what he did in his early days.
But what’s wrong with Andrea Mitchell? She seems to do a fine job reporting. Ya, it’s not strident liberalism, but she’s pretty good at holding politicians to account, it seems. Dunno, someone can enlighten me, I don’t watch a ton of tv.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
But they don’t have the numbers. They just have an older demographic of true believers. It’s just weird for liberals to keep wanting to have the same thing, a biased propaganda channel.
@Chris
Exactly. Increasingly, all the complaints about the bad MSM and The Village is just “get off my lawn stuff” from people stuck on the old media.
Even though some news services on the Internets are having trouble monetizing what they do, Internet news has displaced print media. TV news still is king, but not with younger people or those who are computer savvy. I was listening to a podcast commenter talking about the demise of Circa. He went on to say:
People like this could not care less about MSNBC or who is on it, or even whether they come up with younger or more liberal anchors.
hilts
Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell are the only hosts on MSNBC worth watching.
MSNBC should get rid of Lockup and all true crime programming.
Rachel Maddow is an insufferable doofus, Chris Hayes is a hipster douchebag, Chris Matthews is pure, unadulterated scum (plus he helped to get Phil Donahue kicked off the air) and Joe and Mika are incredibly repulsive.
Gin & Tonic
@hilts: Lawrence O’Donnell’s picture is in the dictionary under “insufferable.”
Elie
@cokane:
Andrea M is excellent at spouting Villager conventional wisdom. I don’t find her holding anyone to account who needs to be held to account… she is a slightly smarter Cokie Roberts.
Chris
@Brachiator:
In addition to your “they don’t have the numbers…” liberals wouldn’t watch a liberal Fox News. The concept is pretty much screwed from the start. Just look at this place and the amount of disagreement that happens between liberals on everything from free trade policy to health care policy to the NSA to drones to what we should prioritize when running for office (and when in office). “Put two liberals in a room, you’ll get three opinions.” There just aren’t enough same-minded liberals around to sit back, enjoy the outrage machine, and obediently goose-step in support of whatever The Media Machine is telling them to do these days the way Fox viewers do – you couldn’t even get enough of them to agree on what The Media Machine should be saying in the first place.
FlipYrWhig
@Gin & Tonic: LO’D tries way too hard to be snarky/entertaining, which he really isn’t, despite his Hollywood experience, which also isn’t nearly as compelling as he thinks it is. He might do better as Olbermann Redux, fueled by furious indignation, than as… whatever his persona is supposed to be right now.
Samuel Knight
Andrea Mitchell – aka Ms Alan Greenspan – is an awful example of spewing Village idiot nonsense.
She’s horrendous. But I think Todd might edge her out in being just an annoying twerp. Really meet the Press? Wow really makes you hate the national press. Let’s interview McCain again!
Seanly
I like a lot of what Rachel says, but it takes her 15 minutes & 3 commercial breaks to introduce a 5 minute segment or interview. For example to introduce John Kerry:
She’d spend so much time describing PT boats one of which was driven by a future president in WWII then how the river gunboats in Vietnam were similar to the PT boats. And you know who captained a river gunboat in Vietnam? Please welcome Secretary Kerry to the show!
My wife used to watch Rachel a lot but prefers Chris Hayes. While I like both of them I tend not to watch any cable news shows except every once & a while with my wife.
Mike in NC
Someday MSNBC will have nothing to offer but Morning Joe, Afternoon Joe, and Evening Joe. Maybe with occasional specials by Mrs. Greenspan (“Andrea Mitchell Distorts”).
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: I miss MHP and Up with Chris Hayes. And Sharpton and Ed are okay in moderate doses. Both bring a very different perspective to teevee news blathering. But they made it really hard to stream their shows and obviously they made Chris baby Rachel. I just gave up a while ago. Also the fucking repetitiveness. It’s tiring to go through an entire hour of segments. Plus commercials.
Brachiator
@Chris:
True enough.
Actually, I think that there is a bit of elitism behind this as well. Some liberals don’t want a successful liberal propaganda network for themselves, but for the supposedly low information citizen to be able to watch as an alternative to Fox News.
Another Holocene Human
@ruemara: You said it, they could go all liberal except for Joe who is awful but gets good ratings. Sharpton pulls an unusual demographic, why not run with it? Running hours and hours of common village wisdom spewing suck and disgraces to journalism is being driven by the suits. Absolutely.
Another Holocene Human
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Good grief, I hate Stephen Sackur and Hard Talk. It’s pretty telling who the “hard talk” is reserved for and who gets softballs.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re wrong, uber is popping up everywhere, including in small cities with shitty cab service where, frankly, the industry is far more vulnerable than in New York.
Dave C
People still watch cable news? Hasn’t that been scientifically proven to rot your brain?
Another Holocene Human
@FlipYrWhig:
Hey, I like Krystal Ball! She’s a trip.
Easy on the eyes, too.
I always enjoy Michael Steele too although I don’t know how relevant he is these days.
Aqualad08
When “more Chuck Todd” is your answer, you’re obviously being asked the wrong question.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: But union people would watch a union version of Fox News. So f*cking around with Ed Schultz and his timeslot has been quite damaging. You go to a union convention it’s “Ed Schultz, Ed Schultz, why aren’t you watching him daily?”
You have to understand, nobody in the national media even answers their calls. You have to jump and scream to get local news coverage.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Another Holocene Human: Ok, I have to admit that I’ve only seen a relative handful of his interviews. But – serious question – who’s better? The hosts on the BBC News on the radio often ask probing questions, but those news segments are rarely more than 2-3 minutes. For long-form interviews that at least attempt to ask probing questions, what’s better?
Please don’t say Jon Stewart… ;-)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
(I don’t think the 3 hour Q&A segments on C-Span are comparable, either, though those can be interesting.)
JFly
I like Alex Wagner and her show format, and would be able to watch her more if she was on after 5pm MST. But I’m long since over Ed Schultz.
Kropadope
@Aqualad08: The questioner could theoretically be asking the wrong person.
Turgidson
@cokane:
I remember Chuck Todd being a decent vote-cruncher during the 2008 election. Sort of a less-sophisticated Nate Silver who dug into how various counties and bellwethers were voting.
But that’s the only interesting thing I remember him ever doing, and he somehow parlayed that into being the network’s White House correspondent and then Press the Meat. He sucked as the White House guy and he’s even worse as the MTP host, as he’s now one of the worst conventional wisdom puke funnels in the business, who has admitted more than once that he’s afraid to ask real questions to GOP sociopaths because they might not come back on the show if he does.
But, sure, let’s plaster him all over MSNBC now, too. And while we’re at it, let’s drop one of the only semi-talented anchors we have left (Alex Wagner – not perfect, but pretty good). That’ll work. Jesus. Do the MSNBC decision makers all have severe head trauma? What the bloody hell are they doing?
pseudonymous in nc
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Different audience: compare CNN International to the domestic CNN. CNN has tried making bits of its domestic schedule more like CNNi, and… it doesn’t work. American cable news is not international SRS BSNS hotel room news sponsored by Emirates Airways and Rolex with yacht commercials.
It’d be nice if the audience was there for an actual news channel, but there’s an audience of grumpy old men who want to watch young blonde women on Fox News, and a much smaller audience of politics junkies who want to watch politics junkying. Even the afternoon staples of car chases or other LIVE CRAZY break down when you get alerted from Twitter and can go online and watch the local feeds. This is bald men fighting over a comb.
Citizen Alan
@cokane:
The fact that she’s also known as “Mrs. Alan Greenspan,” a fact that she never mentions when discussing economic policy, is a biggie for some people (myself included).
Kropadope
@Citizen Alan: OMG, I kept seeing different people write that. At first I thought it was a metaphor.
Citizen Alan
@Turgidson:
God yes! IIRC, he got to ask the very first question of Obama at a White House Press conference, and it was something like: “If Congress passes a healthcare bill with no Republican votes, will you veto it in the interests of bipartisanship?”
Voncey
As long as they keep Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow I’ll be happy. Hayes is so smart but he’s better when he’s not so rushed. They should move Rachel to 8, Blowhard O’Donnell to 9 and give Chris Hayes 10-12 so he can go back to the Saturday morning format and be as wonky as he wants.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Andrea Mitchell was godawful on the Iranian negotiations over the past few months, constantly harping on “bipartisan” skepticism
askew
@FlipYrWhig:
No kidding. All of the blind people in the U.S. must be listening to MSNBC because that ad airs constantly. But, I had no idea there was a condition that impacted only blind people who can’t get on a 24-hour schedule and are sleep-deprived, so I learned something new from watching MSNBC. That’s exciting.
I hope they don’t end up getting rid of Jose Diaz-Balart’s show. His is by far my favorite daytime show. He brings a wealth of knowledge on Latin America and immigration issues that is just MIA from all the other MSNBC shows. His show the day of the Cuba announcement was just remarkable.
sharl
@Citizen Alan: Yep, Andrea Mitchell’s 1997 marriage to Ayn Rand fanboy Alan Greenspan doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves, nor the acknowledgement it merits from her and fellow panelists during commentary time, especially when economy-related issues come up where hubby’s policies had an impact. The CJR blog addressed this in considerable detail in 2008 – The Elephant in the Control Room:
Should Andrea Mitchell be reporting on the economic meltdown? – and it was a problem during 2004 campaign coverage, as MMfA noted in this summary of another reporter’s post (Ayelish McGarvey’s original post is here):
One thing I think I remember, but for which I could find no online citations, is that this very issue came up around the time of the 1997 Mitchell-Greenspan wedding, and that Mitchell said she would avoid any conflict of interest by not covering any stories about the economy, especially where hubby played an active role. Like I said though, I couldn’t find a citation for this actually happening, so it could just be a false memory on my part.
Samuel Knight
BTW – Morning Joe gets horrible ratings – except in the DC market.
And they’ve let him veto interviewing a lot of the progressive bloggers – most galling Kos.
But overall cable news is going to be tough. Much easier to put on Bubbas and blondes for old men like Fox does. Blaming everyone else is easier too.
Elizabelle
Do you think Chuck Todd is getting MSNBC daytime because they’re about to eject him from Meet the Press?
Elizabelle
What I would do, if I ruled MSNBC: drop most of the cable programming, and go to the NBC vaults. Put together documentaries, using footage of historic events of the past, and how problem was solved — or left unsolved to this day.
The confederate flag brooha demonstrated history is not taught well at all in this country, and is frequently manufactured and then not questioned.
Use those archives to educate and inform and entertain. History and what really happened is so much more interesting than fiction, in many ways.
Put on some old and rarely seen TV shows, documentaries, and movies.
This might remind people that the good old days could be pretty grim, and that paying taxes and receiving public services and infrastructure in return is not a bad deal.
Even pick up some recent programming not running — Deadwood, etc. — and talk about whether that was accurate and what it was really like. License some high quality programming.
Drop the prison programming — so depressing.
Cover major speeches with news value; don’t cede that merely to CNN and Fox. But drop the talking heads that insult our intelligence and misinform.
Bring down the cost of programming, and bring up the intelligence quota.
Thinking on what Jon Stewart said in the last interview with Obama, about how you cannot run a great documentary today — like Harvest of Shame — that will be seen because programming is so fragmented.
There’s a smart audience out there that wants to be entertained and informed and to think.
It’s not turning into MSNBC now, so do something WAY different.
LAC
So, MSNBC will have the kraken and the chinless fuck to occupy space while those who haven’t slipped into a voluntary coma wait for tweety? Yeah, I’ll pass…
rod smiffers
Will now only watch Rachel and Chris Hayes if he get his ‘Up With Chris’ weekend show back from the poll-meister. I used to get up at 06:00 MT to learn from his seminars with very smart, capable people.
Splitting Image
It strikes me that the TV news channels have never really dealt with the advent of Youtube. The way video works now is that once it’s out there, it’s out there forever. So all a journalist has to do is cover a story, put the video on Youtube (or equivalent), and provide the link.
Most of the TV bobbleheads still seem to be stuck in an era where news is shown once and then thrown into a bin, so to properly cover a story, they have to recap everything they said an hour ago and add the fact or two that has arisen since. They seem to believe that a fully-staffed cable channel can’t be expected to cover more than two or three stories at a time. They’ve been like this since the OJ Simpson trial.
cokane
@Citizen Alan: O right, I had forgotten about this
mike in dc
They should replace Sharpton with TWiB.
mike in dc
Also, replace Tweety with Josh Marshall. Replace Hardball with Talking Points Memo, basically. MASSIVE improvement.
Hal
Sigh. I’ve always liked Alex Wagner and I personally really like Chris Hayes. Tv needs some policy wonks in a country where so many folks don’t know basic civics.
Irony Abounds
Complain about who the replacements are, but the shows being canceled are being canceled because they couldn’t draw flies with horse manure and it is totally unrealistic to expect a network to go down in flames just to be noble. They have to figure out some way to attract viewers. Now, putting Todd on doesn’t strike me as the way to do it, but if you are constantly getting drubbed by the drek on CNN like Alex Wagner and Ed Shultz have been, you don’t have any room to complain about being canceled.
dianne
I used to listen to Stephanie Miller on Air America. She was witty and smart and I would be laughing out loud at some of the segments during drive time in the AM. Why can’t we have someone like that on a supposedly liberal network instead of these thick as mud hosts. Rachel is tiresome in that she seems to have to drive a point home over and over as if we just can’t quite get it the first time around. We get it! Move on.
I would probably watch straight news segments rather than CNN if that’s where they are headed. I will do anything thing to avoid Wolf.