Posted on 08/19/2002 9:15:00 PM PDT by kattracks
With his ratings in a crash dive, critics are speculating on how long it will take the top men at MSNBC to wave bye bye to their widely ballyhooed retread, Phil Donahue.
According to the New York Times, Donahue's show has lost 40 percent of his viewers in the mere four weeks since the cable network hauled the aging ultra-liberal out of retirement and promoted his comeback with a massive publicity campaign one MSNBC executive told the Times was "the most promotion the channel has ever devoted to any program."
Nagging MSNBC is the embarrassing fact that CNN's Connie Chung's ratings put her in second place in the 8:00 EDT time spot far behind Fox's Bill O'Reilly but now about an average 300,000 viewers ahead of Donahue.
For MSNBC, which pinned their hopes on Donahue to energize their new nightly 8:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. lineup featuring Jerry Nachman and Ashley Banfield, this is a disaster.
Donahue's dismal statistics tell the mournful story. According to the Times, in his opening week Donahue had a daily average of about 660,000 viewers, but in the next three weeks that figure faded away. In week two, he dropped to an average of 579,000 viewers, in week three he dropped to 439,000 and in week four he was down to a pitiful average 393,000.
Pursing their lips to whistle in the graveyard, MSNBC executives deny that the onetime liberal idol faces a speedy return to retirement. While denying that his network harbors thoughts of dumping Donahue, Neal Shapiro, the president of NBC News, told Carter that Donahue will start to take advantage of more news developments this fall and everything will be just dandy.
Obviously, there are no news developments like the possibility of an attack on Iraq taking place now. New developments appear to be taking a summer vacation but they'll be back in the fall, just in time to rescue Phil Donahue.
"We'll have an election to cover and a war in Iraq," Mr. Sorenson told the Times. "The channel is counting on Mr. Donahue to handle that kind of subject matter better than Ms. Chung. "Connie has never played in this format," Mr. Shapiro said, adding that he's also pinning his hopes on playing the celebrities-on-parade strategy to resurrect the dying Donahue show.
"He's going to have Oprah on and Harrison Ford and George Clooney," Mr. Sorenson told the Times. "I don't honestly expect to have an answer on this until November."
Wow. The return of news developments and Oprah.
Ominously for Donahue, Shapiro acknowledged that the fall may be the make-or-break time for MSNBC. "We have to keep these shows moving forward," he told Carter, adding that future investment and promotion budgets for the channel may be riding on it.
The whole thing is just another example of the inability of MSNBC executives to read public attitudes that are increasingly conservative, parading out shopworn liberals like Donahue in the hope that he'll somehow be able to compete with the likes of Bill O'Reilly when he can't even compete with Connie Chung.
Sending him home to resume his retirement would be an act of mercy.
What Sir Winston said was, "Any man at age 18 that is not a liberal, has no heart. But any man at age 40 that is not a conservative, has no head."
What an incredibly cynical b****** Shapiro is. The phrase "news developments" in this context is nothing more than code language for war and/or other types of human misery. For somebody to publicly wish for ill to befall their fellow countrymen merely to prop up a failing television program is absolutely sickening.
May Shapiro suffer some "news developments" of his own in his personal life (preferably something involving terminal hemmorhoids and necrotizing fascitis of his genital regions).
Hell, they've managed to stay on the air without any investment or promotion budgets for six years now, so what's the difference if the newfound money gets cut off again?
Talk about failing your man. The Libs are not watching.
Maybe Donohue needs to host a show on Pacifica Radio to get the numbers he needs.
The new black middle class is waking up.
I am involved in scouting as a district commissioner. Our new chief executive who was just elected is a black businessman from Chicago, (Roy Roberts). He was formerly active with scouting in Detroit. The following is a quote from him.
"Scouting has a great and glorious history, but this is our time! There has never been a greater need for scouting. With your help we will make this the golden age of scouting.!"
I thought some might be interested in this news.
It can, and it is. Bush has slowly but steadily made inroads into the black voter bloc pretty much since he was inaugurated. And the best thing about this is, the RATS need to keep their iron-fisted control of every last one of those voters in order to survive. If only 2-3% of blacks actually switch to Bush in 2004, it will be almost mathematically impossible for the RAT candidate to win.
I was not aware he did, I thought that was Ted Turner.. In that case, the check will bounce!
HOLD THAT THOUGHT!
"Maybe Donohue needs to host a show on Pacifica Radio to get the numbers he needs."
Audience surveys consistently reveal that the audience for news is overwhelmingly conservative politically.
Think about it. The demographic they are seeking is "above average income, above average education, high consuming households with children". This demographic skews heavily conservative Republican. We are well-informed and want to stay that way -- actively reading the newspapers and following the broadcast news.
Media executives, however, somehow failed to recognize that the liberal propaganda they were spewing would not cut ice with this audience. Then, along came Roger Ailes...
The guys who are running network news and the other mainstream media outlets are totally clueless as to the nature of their market. I suppose that's not surprising, given that they don't understand capitalism...
By the same token, my favorite Joan Rivers show was when she had Phil on and "surprised" him by "arranging" a phone call to the president of a yacht club which had rejected his membership application after the big move to NY from Chicago. He was amazingly contrite when HE was the one being exposed and embarrassed!
Now he can be a guest on Oprah with the theme "How To Be A TV Has-Been."
They are still trying to blame the internet whackos for thier declining market share.
LOL! But how about Gonorrheahue? :)
Well said! They create the disease and we have the cure.
Our entire program is built around building strong, solid and upright young men with a backbone, and leadership skills.. The public schools appear to be looking to create the opposite.
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