It is not hard to figure at all. It was around 1990, my eldest daughter and I were trying to figure out what to do with our Am Station. We did not have Rush. So what could we do?
My Daughter thought it might be worth while to find out how big a potential audience would be for a left leaning poltical talk show. She went to the board of elections and got the voter registration lists. She got the same lists used in exit polls. They were bellwether precincts.
We called Democrats, Republicans and independents to see how interested they were in news talk. If they were interested in news talk what kind of news did they prefer to hear about.
The results were amazing. A lot fewer Democrats were interested in news talk than were Republicans. Not many independents were interested in news talk either. And Dmocrats and independents who were interested in news talk wanted to hear about rapes, murders, robberies, and sensational stories. If it bleeds it leads and Democrats will watch it.
On the other hand most Republicans wanted issues like taxes, foreign policy, legislation before congress and what the economy as doing discussed and commented on.
MSNBC is foolish. They are puting a very pronounced Democrat slant on issue coverage that mostly attracts Republicans.
Yes there are a few Demorats who are into political issues.... About 250 thousand of them for every 2.5 million Republicans. THat is why Fox News Channel is beating the crap out of them.
Correting MSNBC would be pretty simple. First do enough research (polling) to find out who and of what political persuasion the potential audience belongs too. Then find out what they want to watch with what slant and give it to them.
How do you select hosts? The same way Hollywood found stars. You audition good looking hosts and have them do demo shows before their potential audiences.
Sort of like a hollywood screen test. When you find good looking people whose views and performance match the potential audiences desires .. put them on the air.
You could have a bigger audience than FOX and CNN together in six months.
I don't know any of these people you all are talking about on MSNBC.
My cable provider offers 182 channels. MSNBC is not one of them.
I think I did watch about one hour of it in a motel room once. That should do me for the rest of my life.