Cenk Uygur On Why He Left MSNBC: ‘I Didn’t Want To Work In A Place… That Didn’t Challenge Power’

Medialite ^ | July 21st, 2011 | Frances Martel

[tlb]

Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur’s departure from the network earlier today was fairly quiet for a close-to-primetime host, and the network made it clear it was his choice to leave. It didn’t take long for the newly liberated Uygur to address his fans.

In the end, he explained, it boils down to this: Cenk Uygur is a tiger, and MSNBC tried to cage him.

“They offered, honestly, a lot of money,” Uygur explains in his message, where he also says the role would have been a smaller one– “contributor, etc.”– instead of the alternate program the MSNBC statement suggested. He then explained something an executive once told him when he began as host: “there are two audiences– the audience you’re trying to appeal to, the viewers, and management.”

Management took him aside in April, he explains, and told him to “tone it down” because “people in Washington are concerned about your tone.” He did the exact opposite.

He concluded succinctly that “I didn’t want to work in a place that wouldn’t let me do my kind of show, that wasn’t interested in my kind of show, that didn’t wnat to challenge power.”

[Arcy]

The truth concerning his departure is that the ratings he promised to MSNBC didn’t materialize. They wanted to move his time slot and asked him to “tone down” his hateful anti-American rhetoric, but like most other radical Muslims, he wasn’t interested in making peace.

His show pulled such low ratings that Nielsen likely didn’t even track it! Of course, why would anyone expect a propagandist television show, hosted by a man whose loyalty to this country is questionable at every level, and who openly makes anti-semitic remarks to remain profitable for any network? He joins the long list of failures before him. Good riddance!!

[DGHoodini]

How about that ‘No Cenks Weeweegrrr’ admits he’s a *destroyer*. Most Dems are, but to hear one admit it....

[CPOSharky]

He then explained something an executive once told him when he began as host: “there are two audiences– the audience you’re trying to appeal to, the viewers, and management.”

There are three kinds of people, those who can count and those who can't. /S

[tlb]

LOL

I completely missed that. Well done :)

[little jeremiah]

I’ve read the name Cenk Uygur or whatever it is but never saw/heard him as I haven’t had a TV since the Clinton impeachment, and even then only for a year or two.

Is Cenk an idiot, then? And too idiotic even for MSNBC? If the people in DC didn’t like him, that must be good, right?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

An anti-semite who styles himself a “young turk”, about as wicked as it gets against Christians let alone the Jews.

[Fantasywriter]

I’m a day late to the thread, but here are a few items on Cenk. He was wildly, wildly popular at DU, one of the few commentators who consistently pleased the craziest of the crazy, if that tells you anything.

Also, I’ve only seen one clip of him, and it was disgusting, funny and pathetic. Ace of Spades linked to it, and it was a monologue Cenk did a few days into the Weiner/weiner peccadillo. Cenk said no Democrat was stupid enough to send pics of his...ahem...to multiple public recipients. A Republican would be that stupid, but no Dem could possibly do such a thing, therefore it wasn’t Weiner’s weiner, and the brilliant congressman had been set up in a dastardly way.

Right good humor, to watch it *after* it turned out that yes, Weiner was that dumb, and yes, it was his weiner. Hehe.

Fwiw.

[little jeremiah]

When I hear about what goes on in TV land, I am thankful I do not have one. There really isn’t any reception or cable where I live anyway, just satellite.

I get news on the internet and entertainment by playing my guitar. I don’t need anything else.

(Expcet I could spend less time on FR...)

[Fantasywriter]

Agreed! TV is a wasteland. And can you imagine how maddening it would have been to hear the original Cenk segment, where he was saying only Republicans are stupid enough to photograph their weiners and send it to everybody on their ‘friend’ list?

Otoh, seeing it after the fact was a riot. To know that Cenk lives in infamy on Youtube, forever explaining that only a Republican is dumb enough to do what only Weiner did—now that is sweet. ;)