Olbermann Features News Corpse On Countdown

On yesterday’s broadcast of Countdown on MSNBC, host Keith Olbermann featured a story about News Corpse. I couldn’t be more proud.

Actually, it was a story on the $1 million donation from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to the Republican Governor’s Association. Although I did report on this unprecedented bankrolling of GOP candidates by a major pseudo-news organization, Countdown’s segment was an interview of Media Matters’ Eric Burns on the subject.

It was an informative and entertaining discussion that hit on most of the salient points. I would have liked it if they had also pointed out that some of the funds received by the RGA would likely be stuffed right back into Murdoch’s pocket via ads they purchase on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal, but in the end I was just jazzed to see my web site name on the screen for several minutes.

Keith should be grateful that I am not as litigious as Murdoch, whose company is presently harassing the folks at Skype because they think the name is “confusingly similar” to their Sky satellite television service. I’m still waiting for Murdoch to come after me.

Media Is Changing. Get used To It!

The National Conference on Media Reform is presently underway in Minneapolis, MN. If you are fortunate enough to attend you will encounter an inspiring array of media professionals, critics, activists, and others who recognize both the threat and the potential of the modern media infrastructure. If you cannot attend, stay informed by visiting the Conference website.

The mission of the Conference, and its sponsor FreePress, is to build a movement to recreate media as an institution that serves the interests of the people, not the powerful. Such a movement will generate some blowback, as evidenced by Howard Rosenberg’s column in today’s Los Angeles Times. Rosenberg’s article inadvertantly exposes the tender underbelly of his generation’s dismay toward the transforming media landscape. Tucked into a piece that is, on the surface, a critique of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, it is really an unveiling of the fears of a passing era of journalism.

Rosenberg starts by characterizing the Olbermann model, which he calls a “snide act,” as consisting primarily of smug histrionics, relentless needling, and shameless self-puffery. He also lays into Bill O’Reilly, but contends that the difference between them, in terms of the threat they pose to journalism, is that there will only ever be one Bill O’Reilly, while another Olbermann can be reproduced by anyone with a fairish sense of humor. [Note to Rosenberg: If you think O’Reilly is unique, you might want to do some further study on the subject paying particular attention to Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Hugh Hewitt, etc.] But the real message in Rosenberg’s column is summed up in a single paragraph that is dripping with the lament of one who senses that his time is past.

“Is this to be the standard during this period of media transition? What do we have, a few years at best, maybe 10 before news goes all Internet all the time and moves to fingernail-sized screens that we read with a magnifying glass? Technology-driven change is transforming news media, and news consumers, at warp speed. How many years before newspapers like this one are available in present form only as antiquities, like the illuminated manuscripts on display under glass at the Getty Center?”

Yes, Rosenberg is afraid that the Internet will soon make obsolete the media environment in which he has grown so comfortable. He is suspicious of a transformation that is moving too fast for his liking. He fears that he and his kind will be relegated to the musty corridors of museums. And he even shudders at the notion of a news platform that strains his aging and failing eyesight.

Get used to it, Mr. Rosenberg. Media is changing. Those with influence in the past will find their power waning. New generations of news makers and consumers will define the next phase of journalism. There will be bumps in the road but, if we’re smart and strong, it will result in more honest, more diverse, and more democratic reporting. It will expand perspective and access. And it will diminish the role of giant, nation-less, corporate enterprises, more beholden to profit and their benefactors in government, than they are to their readers, listeners, viewers, and the public good.

Media reform is essential to the progress of every other social movement. No matter what issue ranks highest for you personally, you will need an ability to educate and inform the world as to your goals. Consequently, if you hope to be successful, you must devote at least part of your time to shaping the media into a useful, unbiased, and accessible tool for change.

The Rise Up Of Countdown

Another month, another dismal performance by Fox News who, once again, wins the trophy for “Slowest Growing Cable News Network.” The redundancy of this news compels me to search for some other ratings story so as not to bore myself. Fortunately, I’ve found a couple.

Countdown Rise Up

For most of the past half dozen years, Fox has enjoyed an almost uncontested dominance in the presentation of what is generously called news. Much of the credit goes to the bombastic pedagogy of Bill O’Reilly whose patented brand of obnoxiousness nevertheless found its audience. But in the past year the bloom has fallen from the amorphophallus titanum. The Factor is now showing both age and fatigue.

In the past year, Keith Olbermann’s Countdown has more than doubled its audience, growing 112%. O’Reilly eked out a pitiful 13% gain despite this being an election year that normally draws viewers in droves. Factor defenders routinely dismiss talk of growth percentages as not reflecting realities in the market. So if they want to talk about actual numbers of viewers, the past year also shows that O’Reilly, who used to beat Olbermann by a whopping 113%, is now only 13% ahead. This places Countdown squarely in contention for ratings victories that used to be considered fantasies. In fact, Countdown did beat the Factor six times in May. On several occasions it was the highest rated program on any cable news network in all of prime time.

What’s left of O’Reilly’s audience is still a sizable chunk of viewers. But if you take a closer look at the composition of the “Folks,” the myth of the Factor being some sort of TV phenomenon is indisputably busted. The portion of his audience that is in the 25-54 year old demographic preferred by advertisers is 21%. Fully four out of five of O’Reilly viewers are considered to be of little value to the advertisers that determine whether a show remains on the air. That compares to 38% for Countdown. So while Countdown still has fewer total viewers than the Factor (for now), it is a richer source for the most highly prized sector of the audience. It’s also interesting to note that O’Reilly’s demographic weakness is even worse than Fox News overall, whose total day draw of 25-54 year olds is 25% (38%, same as Countdown, for MSNBC).

By all accounts, the rise of Countdown has been extraordinary and its competitors have taken notice. The controversy that erupted last month between Fox executives and their NBC/GE counterparts is one example of how the theater of battle has expanded. Another example is the perplexing behavior of O’Reilly during his interview of former Bush press secretary, Scott McClellan. O’Reilly spent a majority of the time ignoring questions about McClellan’s controversial new bestseller, in favor of probing partisan reactions to the book in the press and McClellan’s decision to appear on other news programs before the Factor. O’Reilly battered McClellan with assertions that he was just a dupe of the left, he called McClellan “crazy,” and then put forth this inquiry:

“I watched you last week promoting the book on some of the most notorious Bush haters in the country. And you were on their programs. And I — didn’t it make your skin crawl?”

The only venue wherein that could be considered a serious question is safely huddled in the hearth of O’Reilly’s dementia. The real purpose of O’Reilly’s absurd line of questioning is to try to discredit his perceived enemies – aka, his competition. Notorious Bush haters is O’Reilly-ish for Keith Olbermann. It’s notable that whenever Olbermann casts aspersions on O’Reilly, he does it with a wink and a smile. But O’Reilly is so deadly serious about the hate America lefties that he seems to be ready to spontaneously combust. It is a classic exhibition of the symptoms of acute desperation and paranoia.

The problem for O’Reilly now is that everything he does to retard his decline just makes him look more retarded. The end is nearing, but he will never be able to admit that to himself. And when they carry him out of the studio insisting that he is still important, half the nation will be giggling, and the other half will be saying, “Bill who?”

Update 6/10/08: An MSNBC press release states that “MSNBC continued its ratings surge last week, with viewers flocking out of the “No Spin Zone” and to “The Place for Politics.” For the first time ever, MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” was the #1 show at 8 p.m., out-drawing Fox News’s “O’Reilly Factor” head-to-head among Adults 25-54.” That 1st place milestone is for the whole week. Countdown has topped the Factor an several occasions this year on a nightly basis.

Fox News In Critical Condition

In the first quarter of 2008, Fox News was the slowest growing cable news network (10%), behind MSNBC (66%) and CNN (87%). For the first time in six years they finished in 2nd place. Now, in the first month of the 2nd quarter, the diagnosis is even worse.

Ratings April 2008

Notably, Fox is showing a 14% decline form their year-ago numbers, while their arch nemesis, MSNBC, posts a 9% increase. This comes in the midst of a contentious election year when demand for news is uncommonly strong. Why then is Fox waning? The same dynamics I wrote about a month ago are still in play today:

“The stagnation of Fox’s audience can be traced in part to the downward spiral of the Bush presidency. Fox has long tethered its fortunes to a conservative ideology that has fallen out of favor.”

Mainstream audiences are less interested in the partisan cheerleading of right-wing zealots. They may also be tiring of the Crossfire-style tongue lashing engaged in by the modern punditocracy. A case in point is Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, which has been criticized for avoiding confrontation by declining to book adversarial guests. But its strategy is validated by consistently being the fastest growing program on cable news. The numbers for April show that it is the only program to grow (+21%), compared to CNN’s Campbell Brown (-23%) and Fox’s Bill O’Reilly (-12%).

MSNBC also benefited from the contributions of the rest of its lineup (Race For the White House, Hardball, Verdict) which were all either stable or higher, while their competition was uniformly lower. Even Countdown’s repeat contributed by improving on last year’s Doc Block by 10%.

What is particularly disturbing is that, in this environment where Fox News is gasping for air, the Democratic candidates for president chose this week to succumb to the howl of publicity hounding. What we already know about the narrow-minded nature of Fox’s audience, combined with the evidence that it is shrinking precipitously, should be enough to convince rational Democrats to remove Fox News from their itinerary.

This is not the time to surrender. The Democratic embargo of Fox News has almost certainly played a part in the network’s decline. Their programming has suffered by being over-weighted with right-wingers and Republicans. They have resorted to whining on air about the kids who won’t play with them. If it wasn’t hurting them they wouldn’t mention it. Now, with Fox on the ropes, Democrats should stay strong and resist whatever urge it is that compels them to act against their own interests by accepting invitations to a party from a host that seeks only to diminish them.

Let’s hope that now that the thrust and parry of the Obama/Clinton appearances on Fox are history, they can manage to rein in their impulses and get back on the team. Fox is hostile territory and our generals should not be giving them aid and comfort.

Brit Hume Just Doesn’t Get It

Brit Hume was interviewed by the magazine of his alma mater, the University of Virginia. He had some revealing things to say about his view of journalism and the world. The first question dealt with what changes he has seen in the country:

There used to be a general view that America was not what was wrong with the world. In many corners now today and in academia and in the media, I think we see an interest in the idea that maybe America is what’s wrong with the world. There’s a worry that when the U.S. undertakes something, that the U.S. is likely to be the problem, not the solution. I think that’s an attitude that didn’t exist when I first started in this business and I think it’s not for the better.

Another way of putting that is that there used to be a general view that America was infallible and that our leaders could not be questioned. Apparently Hume would like to return to those days.

When asked about the perception of Fox News as conservatively biased, he rattled off a litany of issues (without any support) that he believes his press associates lean leftward on. He then concedes that Fox takes a different stance on those issues. The admission that Fox has a stance on issues should be enough to dismiss them as a credible news organization. But Hume isn’t nearly done:

“As long as our competitors are convinced that we’re a right-wing news organization out to promote right-wing causes, they never will get it. That’s good news for us. They can’t fix their problem because they don’t understand it. As long as they continue to think in that way, they’re probably not going to gain much ground on us.”

It is hysterical on its face that Hume still insists that Fox is not a “right-wing news organization.” But even funnier is his delusional analysis of his competition not gaining ground. Here are the facts for just this year:

  • January 07-08 gains: CNN 42% – MSNBC – 37% – Fox 9%.
  • February 07-08 gains: CNN 133% – MSNBC – 62% – Fox 16%

I’d call that gaining ground. And those numbers reflect network performance going back at least two years. The fortunes of Fox have been trending down in virtual syncopation with the still sinking approval ratings for President Bush. While they still have a large reserve of Stepford viewers, Fox is at a decided disadvantage. Their audience is aging and is generally less appealing to advertisers. In fact, CNN is able to charge 50% more ($5.96) per thousand viewers than Fox ($4.06).

Recently Fox has lost outright to competitors. They came in last on March 4th’s primary coverage (after both CNN and MSNBC) and were bested by CNN for the whole month of February in the key 25-54 demographic. And Keith Olbermann’s Countdown beat O’Reilly again last week. Granted, it’s not an everyday occurrence, but it used to be unheard of. Mark your calendars for March 30, when Countdown will have it’s second broadcast on the NBC mothership. The last time they did that, Countdown’s subsequent MSNBC airings jumped by 17%, beating O’Reilly then as well.

The fallacy of Fox’s market domination will have to eventually tune in to Hume’s brain wave. Until then, we will likely be subject to more of these hallucinatory bouts of braggadocio. And in all likelihood they will stray even further from reality, because, in the end, it’s Brit Hume and his Fox comrades who “never will get it.”

Tucker Carlson Gets A Vote Of No Confidence

MSNBC has been accused by many rightist pundits of adopting a liberal editorial policy. The sole basis of this charge appears to be the existence of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. In an interview with NPR, MSNBC Sr VP Phil Griffin denies the charge saying that it is the host’s personalities, not their positions that make them popular. So Tucker’s already starting at a disadvantage. Griffin acknowledges that the network is trading on the audience identifying with the program’s anchors.

“Keith Olbermann is our brand; Chris Matthews is our brand. These are smart, well-informed people who have a real sense of history and can put things in context.”

That is an unequivocal expression of the faith Griffin has in Olbermann and Matthews. But when he is specifically asked whether Tucker Carlson is also their brand, he pauses and says…

“He is right now.”

Not exactly a vote of confidence. Griffin seems to be hinting that his answer might be different if you ask him again in a week or two. Looks like the only thing Tucker has to be thankful for is his well-connected family and a contract for an upcoming TV game show pilot. I still can’t get over this project – a remake of “Who Do You Trust?”

The remainder of the segment featured a couple of choice comments from Olbermann:

On his righteous cynicism: “We gave these people every benefit of the doubt. Our naturally contentious political arrangement in this country was silenced for well over a year after 9/11. We got hosed. We were manipulated. That trust that we put in these people, they did not deserve.”

On O’Reilly’s dementia: “As usual, Bill-O’s King Lear act, in which he threatens somebody with terrible consequences and boycotts and plagues of locusts, has produced nothing tangible other than making the object of his impotent rage richer.”

Speaking of Bill-O, his frantic efforts to disparage NBC and his nemesis Keith Olbermann (whom he refers to as “the smear guy”) are butting up against reality. O’Reilly has been falsely bashing NBC as a network in total decline, but the truth is that NBC News beat ABC and CBS in total viewers for the 2006/2007 season. And on the heels of Brian Williams’ appearance on Saturday Night Live, NBC has won the 25-54 demo for the month of November so far. O’Reilly’s analysis, as usual, is worthless, unless you’re really into childish fiction.