Phil Donahue Returns to TV on MSNBC

Veteran talk-show host Phil Donahue is ready to go toe-to-toe with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly as MSNBC tries to strengthen its hand in the cable news chattering war.

Donahue will launch a topical talk show at 8 p.m. on weeknights sometime this summer. MSNBC said Wednesday he had signed a long-term deal, but revealed no specific terms.

The 66-year-old Donahue was a nine-time Daytime Emmy Award winner for his syndicated talk show, which aired nationally from 1970 to 1996. He said that Sept. 11, and his desire to promote the values of free speech, convinced him to come back to television.

"We will be bouncing off the front pages of the newspaper as other cable shows do," Donahue said. "I hope we'll be civil, I hope we'll be different and, please God, I hope we won't be boring."

He'll be pitted against O'Reilly's ratings powerhouse, "The O'Reilly Factor," and a new show on CNN led by Connie Chung, which is supposed to debut in late spring or early summer.

Donahue, who campaigned for Ralph Nader (news - web sites) for president in 2000 and engaged in a memorable "Good Morning America" debate with O'Reilly last fall about military action in Afghanistan (news - web sites), didn't shrink from the description of a liberal vs. conservative showdown in the evenings.

"I want to win," he said. "I always have. It's even more exciting to go against a personality that has been so successful as of late. Let's ring the bell and see what happens."

Donahue said he hoped he would "have a reputation of not stepping on the last five or six words" of a guest's answer — a reference to O'Reilly's combative "no spin zone."

As in an electoral campaign, CNN immediately sought to position itself away from the political fringes. Chung's show will be a news summary, it said, with some newsmaker interviews.

"CNN is pleased to occupy the middle ground at 8 p.m.," spokeswoman Christa Robinson said.

Unlike on his syndicated show, Donahue will work without a live audience, although he may take occasional road trips from the studio.

NBC News President Neal Shapiro said it was the first of "many, many steps" to revamp MSNBC. The cable network's chief executive, Erik Sorenson, said it was shifting away from a concentration on documentaries to "op-ed" television, moving in the direction of ratings-leader Fox.

The 6-year-old MSNBC has yet to establish a clear identity. Andrew Tyndall, who recently conducted a content analysis of the three competitors, concluded that "CNN is the reporting network, Fox News Channel is the opinion network and MSNBC is the confused network."

MSNBC's average prime-time audience during the first three months of 2002 was a little more than a quarter of Fox News Channel's and a third of CNN's. MSNBC's average daily audience is 290,000 people.

To make room for Donahue, MSNBC is moving its nightly news hour with Brian Williams up to 7 p.m. ET. "Hardball" with Chris Matthews will air at 9 p.m. and be shown exclusively on MSNBC and no longer on CNBC.

Two other shows will be pushed back an hour: Ashleigh Banfield's news report will be at 10 p.m. ET and Alan Keyes (news - web sites)' talk show, which has done poorly since its debut this winter, will be at 11 p.m. ET.

It seems the new president of NBC knows less about TV than a retarted peacock... Which noting the channel, he may very well be.

Like all mass communications a TV channel has to appeal to the audience. The first step is to determine who is a potential audience for a station. If MsNBC is going to be news talk, then the first step is to determine who the potential audience is. Then determine by focus groups who appeals to that audience. Then put that progamming on the air. If a programmer can't find or develop programs that are more appealing to the audience than the other channels, then one musst find a segment they are not serving and server that segment. MSNBC is doing none of that.

It seems to me that MSNBC and CNBC don't have a clue about who the potential audience is. Fox is doing well. CNN is on the left politically and not doing well. I think Keyes was an attempt to go to the right of Fox. Donahue is an attempt to go to the left of CNN. Neither programming move is the result of actually determining what the audience wants. It is just stupid guessing by very unobservant people.

The audience research I did nearly a decade ago showed that most of the people that vote left don't watch political TV or tune in to political or news radio. Go to the board of elections. Get the Registerd Democats names and the Registered Republican names. Poll them for who watches or listens to news programs. You will find Democrats don't watch or listen. It ain't hard. Five pollsters can determine that beyond a shadow of a doubt in an afternoon.

But if absolute proof is not your cup of tea, let me ask how many leftists have tried doing shows on talk radio? How many have failed? How many from the right have tried talk radio shows? How many have succeeded? When CNN was the only game they were a success. They were really leftists, but they were the only game in town. When Fox came along and played it down the middle they killed CNN. There is zero evidence that a leftist talk show can make it on Radio. Almost all have failed. None have made it nationally.

The simple reason is that most voters who vote left do not watch or listen to news or news talk. The oolls showed it and rating show it. They watch MTV or WWF or CMT.. They only watch news for a 911, a Kosovo Bombing or a Gulf war. When it is over they go away. They are the reason newschannel viewing swells for big events. But a channel can't survive on their veiwing.

But even on the right, to get a politcial audience one has to be entertaining. People have to enjoy watching the show. Keyes is a disaster because his show is incredibly booring. Keyes doen't know any more about doing well on TV or Radio than he knows about getting votes. Even a pretty dumb programmer should have been able to determine that. Focus groups would have told them "Ain't nobody gonna watch Alan Keyes!" Keyes, and now Donahue tells you the people running MSNBC don't know what they are doing.

Donahue knows how to make people like him. He does know how to be entertaining. But does he know how to attract a political audience? If he is going to be his leftist self, the answer is flat out he won't get an audience.

There is no leftist audience big enough to let a show survive. There is a smaller center audience that can almost support a show. The audience is on the right.

As Fox has shown, you have to interest and entertain the potential audience to get them to watch.

There are just two questions. Who is our potential audience and how do we attract them. NO one at MSNBC is supplying the answers to those very fundamental questions.

If someone did a fox like channel but clearly beamed at the right they would eat Fox for lunch. MSNBC would have next to zero viewers. CNN would be where MSNBC is today and Fox would be where CNN is now

Until they get smart enough to ask who is our potential audience and how do we get them, MSNBC is doomed to fail.

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