Posted on 06/01/2013 7:51:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Our friend Jim Geraghty stumbles across some numbers which may serve to take the collective temperature of the electorate more than any poll coming out of the political analysis factory. (This was also featured in the Morning Jolt, in case you’re not signed up for it yet.) In the midst of a prolonged media strike on various “wacko birds” and a general theme that conservatives were once again in trouble, there seems to be a distinct lack of interest in politics on the part of the Obama faithful.
Read the complete rankings, May 2013 versus May 2012, via Nielsen:
Total Day
FNC: 1,246,000 total viewers, up 24 percent (236,000 in 25-54, down 5 percent)
CNN: 465,000 total viewers, up 61 percent (161,000 in 25-54, up 92 percent)
MSNBC: 346,000 total viewers, down 10 percent (115,000 in 25-54, down 7 percent)
HLN: 494,000 total viewers, up 111 percent (175,000 in 25-54, up 90 percent)Primetime
FNC: 1,973,000 total viewers, up 17 percent (308,000 in 25-54, down 6 percent)
CNN: 660,000 total viewers, up 70 percent (225,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)
MSNBC: 539,000 total viewers, down 20 percent (175,000 in 25-54, down 19 percent)
HLN: 624,000 total viewers, up 91 percent (209,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)
There are a number of nuggets to look at here, none of which seem to fit with current media gossip lines. Fox is up again, though not by a larger margin than you might expect. CNN Headline News was up massively, but as Geraghty points out, it was largely due to their wall to wall coverage of the Jodi Arias trial which kept all the gossip columnists riveted for months. CNN was the butt of many jokes for their jumping the gun on a number of stories, particularly the Boston bombing, but they still managed a staggering jump in their numbers. (Could that be because Jake Tapper joined the crew and lent some credibility to the network in the middle ground between the day shift and the evening?)
But who did that leave to soak up the losses? Yes… MSNBC. Particularly their evening, personality driven, opinion shows.
The soft start for All In With Chris Hayes has not helped. Hayes, down 32 percent in total viewers from The Ed Show last May, has offered a poor lead-in for MSNBC’s primetime flagship, The Rachel Maddow Show, at 9 p.m. The show delivered its lowest-rated month since it debuted in September 2008 (717,000 total viewers) and its second lowest with adults 25-54 (210,000). Maddow was topped by typical time slot victor Sean Hannity and CNN’s Piers Morgan.
I’m not sure which is worse… losing to Piers Morgan or to a spinal inversion therapy infomercial, which probably garnered about the same ratings. But viewer habits can sometimes tell us more than a snapshot delivered by a polling firm which relies on people willing to sit through a phone survey during an off cycle year. As Jim notes, even some of the most liberal bloggers are taking on a decidedly Eeyore tone and wondering if the boat is springing a leak.
Ratings aren’t a perfect indicator either, of course, but it does seem to follow a pattern. Mid-term elections tend to produce low turnout for younger voters and the majority of liberal activist blocks. Or maybe the scandals in DC actually are taking a toll and disillusion is setting in. Either way, we’ll need a few more cycles to see if this is a trend or an aberration.
I hope when MSDNC cans Al Sharpton, conservatives of every stripe will yell “racist” and “bigot” at the network for firing the only black prime time face they have. I’d love to see “lily white” MSDNC get a dose of their own medicine.
I stayed at the Marriott @ Newark Airport last week and happy to report they have Fox News on in the lobby!
BTTT
If republicans, conservatives, and a bunch of mushy independents would JUST QUIT WATCHING the LSD channel they would not have any viewers left.
The only people that check in on MSLSD are folks that monitor them to see what they are sayin’ and this is the problem.
MSNBC can charge money to advertisers because of viewers that monitor that mess which is often largely the right monitoring the left, (like republishing the Spitter and keeping him in business) people think that the federal government is a mess?
Just turn them off and Darwinisn will work.
No one believes the crap anymore. When liberalism is exposed for it’s decrepit nature, people quickly abandon it until they are seduced by it’s lies again.
Or maybe people just can’t stand two people that look like Rachel Maddow back to back.
The local Shell gas station is owned by an Indian by birth (dot not feather) American by choice. His big screen on the wall is always tuned to Fox News. He gets all my business for gasoline and sundry items in the convenience store part.
Hit rock bottom and then started digging.
That MSNBC has not done this and has stayed politically pure and hard left, says that someone who pulls the strings is willing to forgo large sums of money for this ideological purity.
Not to mention Geraldo, Shep, Juan, Beckel etc.
What a God awful channel. MSNBC needs to be put down for good.
If cafeteria style cable ever comes about, MSNBC and their ilk will fold. As it is, they are part of a package and are supported by conservatives who have cable.
That's like being in the lowest pit in Hell and realizing there's a basement.
Well I guess that one of the three morons who watch MSNBC decided to come out from the dark.
Haven’t watched MSNBCLSD in years. Nothing of value what-so-ever. Fox is getting close though.
We keep it on Fox even though I work with a large group of commies.
But then again I run the system and their whining falls on deaf ears. I love it when they roll their eyes when they get to see clips on the Nero Scandals.
One sleazy scandal after another emerged from the Ubama White House and people wanted honest reporting about them, so naturally they turned off MSNBC and went where they could get the news and the facts in a fair and balanced way.
These ratings reports are anything but “unexpected”.
MSNBC, at this moment is on life support!!! A number of factors inside and out are at the apex of its multiple problems. First, POTUS Obama, ineffective with his agenda from the vey start of his second term, is truly a “Lame Duck” POTUS. Add to that the multiple (more to come) “Obama” scandals, one after the other, which are really just beginning and things get even worse as MSNBC tries to sweep the negative “Obama” news under the rug by covering political activity, that no objective person would consider important.
Add to these factors, a terribly weak & ineffective “line-up” of boring, non-factual shows, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Al Sharpton, Joe & Mika in the AM, Chris Matthews, etc. Then, of course, add some liberal disgust with the “Obama Thug Mantra”, coupled with a rising view from African-Americans, seeing that Obama has done zilch for them (They are worse off under Obama, then any other American POTUS) and they will be heavily weighted down and blamed for many years to come for their unfounded, unrewarded, undying support of Obama which has produced, little progress, gain or opportunity for Black and minority folks.
Bottom line: Obama is now damaged goods. He is going down, either sooner or later....but......he will either resign, be impeached or, most likely, just be rendered useless and ineffective as a criminal, thug, and tyrant leader. it happens to all despots, and....it will take its toll on Obama!!! The upcoming 2014 mid-term elections will clearly demonstrate this. Obamacare is dying on the vine, it may be overturned or, more likely altered with a common sense scapel knife.
MSNBC needs radical programming change right now!!! Otherwise, things will continue to detoriate until the MSNBC fails totally.
Actually, for the last month or two...a large segment of people are tuned into HLN for the murder trial episode, and I suspect that MSNBC lost a quarter of their viewership to that. Toss in the fact that this isn’t an election year...fewer hyped-up viewers, and that generally explains the negative numbers.
Sadly, if anyone on the MSNBC staff had a contract coming up....they’d have to accept a pay-cut, rather than a pay-raise.
MSNBC....The JC PENNEY of TV.
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