Romney’s 47% Fiasco Fuels MSNBC Ratings Rout For Maddow, O’Donnell

Posted by Mark NC on September 19, 2012 at 4:26 pm. 5 Comments :

Just like when the party conventions concluded and the DNC’s superior production boosted the audience for MSNBC’s primetime programming, the release of the crippling video of Mitt Romney dismissing half the nation as moochers is having a positive effect on MSNBC as well.

On Monday, Rachel Maddow crushed Sean Hannity scoring 32% more viewers in the key advertiser demo of adults 25-54. Also, Chris Matthews’ Hardball beat Shepard Smith and Lawrence O’Donnell topped Greta Van Susteren.

Last night (Tuesday), Rachel again rolled over Hannity by an even larger margin (37%). And O’Donnell continued his dominance of Van Susteren. On both nights MSNBC took the total primetime time period from Fox News. These wins are significant in that they don’t occur very often. What’s more, they are routing Fox’s perennial winners without any special programming along the lines of a convention or debate. This is strictly news driven.

However, even more noteworthy is that Maddow’s demo numbers on Tuesday were the highest in all of the cable news primetime schedule. She even bested Bill O’Reilly by 3% despite the fact that O’Reilly’s guest was Jon Stewart who ought to have drawn in the younger viewers that ordinarily shun O’Reilly. With his devoted older-skewing viewers, plus the kids from Stewart’s heavily promoted guest appearance, O’Reilly should have run away with the night.

Maddow’s decisive victory suggests that there is something brewing in the cable news game. Viewers are responding to the editorial content of MSNBC and its most dynamic presenters. It’s still way too soon to make definitive statements or projections, but the gathering trends are promising.

Now all MSNBC has to do is capitalize on the new attention they are receiving and bring in new talent. Ed Schultz, who has not been contributing to this upswing, may be due for a makeover or a co-host. And there’s no need to repeat Hardball in the early evening when a new show could could broaden the audience. My long-shot pick: I’d give former Rep. Anthony Weiner a shot. If Eliot Spitzer can get a show on Current, Weiner should have a second chance too. He’s smart, experienced, and entertaining. And the publicity would help bring in a curious audience.

[Update] O’Donnell beat Van Susteren again on Wednesday.

Even MSNBC Gets A Convention Bounce: Still Beating Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on September 11, 2012 at 4:25 pm. 3 Comments :

The Democratic National Convention last week provided an opportunity for MSNBC to introduce themselves to a wider audience. And that they did. The channel was viewed in primetime by more than nine million people during the three days of the convention. That’s nearly 10% higher than the RNC viewership. And for the first time ever they scored a ratings victory over top-rated Fox News for a full week.

With the conventions over MSNBC still has the glow of victory about it. On Monday September 10, Rachel Maddow beat Sean Hannity by 12% in the key 25-54 year old demographic. Lawrence O’Donnell had an even bigger margin of victory (29%) over Greta Van Susteren. And for good measure, the repeat of The Ed Show beat the repeat of the O’Reilly Factor, and Maddow’s repeat beat Hannity’s. That’s four solid hours on top for MSNBC.

These wins were achieved without the help of the convention. And the programs on Fox were stacked with guests that should have been big draws for them. Hannity featured Tea Party darling, Sen. Rand Paul. Van Susteren touted an exclusive with Rep. Darrell Issa who has been hammering the Obama administration over the salacious (and phony) Fast & Furious controversy.

If MSNBC can hold just a portion of these numbers over time, it could signal a turnaround in the cable news hierarchy. MSNBC has not been particularly successful in building their audience, while Fox has masterfully captured the glassy-eyed disciples of conservatism. Time will tell if this is a blip or a trend.

In related news, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released their post-convention survey of attitudes and opinions of the candidates and their events. The headline notes that President Obama was overshadowed by keynoter Bill Clinton. That provides a stark contrast for the RNC where Mitt Romney was similarly overshadowed by Clint Eastwood. Who would you rather be overshadowed by? And Fox News viewers affirm Pew’s findings:

What Television Ratings Tell Us About The Democratic And Republican Conventions

Posted by Mark NC on September 10, 2012 at 7:02 pm. NO Comments :

Now that both parties have held their extended infomercials (aka conventions), data is coming in from polling that shows how the parties fared after the most tightly controlled, self-directed presentations they will be able to put before the public. The candidates will never have a better opportunity to cast themselves in the best possible light, free of any disruption or hindrance, save that which they produce themselves (i.e. Clint Eastwood).

Based on the post-convention polling that is trickling out, there is clear evidence that President Obama put on a better show and is enjoying the fruits of that success. Polls from Gallup, Reuters, CNN, and even the far-rightists at Rasmussen put Obama ahead of Romney by two to six points. The fabled convention bounce was plainly felt in the Obama camp, while the almost never heard of negative bounce struck Romney.

Their is another sort of survey that can be just as enlightening as these election polls. The TV ratings hold a wealth of information that, when analyzed, reveal a great deal about the electorate.

Let’s start with the fact that more Americans watched the Democratic Convention (9.4 million) than the Republican one (8.6 million) a week earlier. Even though the Democrats’ program was filled with well known political figures with whom the public is familiar, viewers still tuned them in in greater numbers than the new faces at the GOP affair that ought to have attracted more people seeking to learn about the ticket for the first time.

Despite the turmoil of the past four years, both imagined (Tea Party, Obama sCare) and real (economy, employment), Obama’s popularity is holding firm. In 2008 the President drew 38.3 million viewers to his convention nomination speech, and that’s when he was an emerging celebrity and the first African-American nominated for the presidency by a major political party. This year Obama drew 35.7 million viewers, a slight 7% decline from 2008. Romney, on the other hand, brought in only 30 million viewers, which was not only less than Obama, whom Republicans insist is an American pariah, but Romney’s audience was also 25% lower than John McCain’s in 2008. And not too many pundits will argue that McCain was a dynamic presence that wowed the masses. You should consider it a bad omen if you can’t outdraw John McCain.

The Republican convention was a feast for right-wing media. Fox News beat all of the other cable news networks, which is something they are accustomed to doing. However, they were in a much less familiar role during the Democratic convention – Dead Last! Fox’s ratings were more than cut in half as their viewers abandoned them rather than let Democrats into their liberally sanitized homes. It is apparent that the FoxPods have no interest in educating themselves about the political agendas of a party they regard as the enemy. So they sequester themselves in the dark until the bogie men and women are gone.

But the bigger story is that MSNBC achieved it’s first ever win of a full week of primetime against CNN and Fox during the Dems broadcast. That’s a significant accomplishment in the midst of an election campaign that is drawing viewers to all networks. To be sure, MSNBC and CNN performed worse during the GOP’s convention than the Democrats. However, they still saw bigger audiences than their non-convention averages, which shows that their viewers are more open to exposing themselves to diverse political opinions. That’s typical of liberals who value education, as opposed to the conservatives who watch Fox who reject science and have been shown through multiple studies to be significantly more misinformed than consumers of other media.

The ratings results from the whole two weeks of convention coverage confirm the analysis I did after the first night of the DNC when I wrote…

The FoxPods were faced with a dilemma. They had no intention of tuning in some other channel. But their pet channel was broadcasting {yuck} Democrats. So the Tea-publicans that make up Fox’s audience sucked it up and turned off Fox. […]

This means that the Fox News audience made a deliberate choice to avoid any exposure to the party they regard as their enemy. They refused to listen to views that Fox has convinced them are dangerous and representative of foreign, Muslim, communist, and godless pagans. They voluntarily separated themselves from the heresy that might have infected their pious souls.

That is behavior consistent with cults. They make a point of disassociating with apostates and blasphemers who might divert them from the true path. Even if those “threats” are close family members. The cult leaders demand strict loyalty. And that is precisely what Fox News gets from their disciples.

Make no mistake…Fox is a religion that compels its adherents to be faithful, to abide by prescribed standards of behavior, and to refrain from dissenting from the orthodoxy. Those rules go for the prominent and powerful as much as they do the little folks in the pews. That’s what prompted former Bush speechwriter David Frum to lament that “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox.”

Fox News Ratings Collapse On First Day Of The Democratic National Convention

Posted by Mark NC on September 5, 2012 at 7:52 pm. 4 Comments :

The ratings for the cable news networks on day one of the Democratic National Convention are out and they reveal much about the nation’s political divisions.

First of all, MSNBC won the night. That may seem like a given, but in reality that was a steep hill to climb for a network that rarely enjoys a single program win. Last night, however, MSNBC not only beat its cable rivals, but also two of the broadcast networks. They came in second only to their sister network, NBC.

More significant is the fact that Fox News, the number one cable news network, saw a steep decline, coming in dead last. For Fox to lose to both MSNBC and CNN is a rare occurrence and gives us a fascinating look into the audience composition of the network

We know that Fox News is the channel of choice for Republicans and conservatives. Their devotion is almost cult-like. In multiple analyses of Fox’s ratings it is apparent that their audience is fiercely loyal. They are not inclined to switch channels, even to watch a GOP debate on another network. Their core audience is stuck on their channel regardless of what else is on.

During the recent Republican convention, Fox’s ratings were up only slightly from their normal programming. And the network was down only 2% from what they did during the 2008 GOP convention. That’s how consistent their audience is on a regular basis. However, for the first day of the Democratic convention they sunk about 66%. What could account for that uncharacteristic decline?

Obviously the FoxPods were faced with a dilemma. They had no intention of tuning in some other channel. But their pet channel was broadcasting {yuck} Democrats. So the Tea-publicans that make up Fox’s audience sucked it up and turned off Fox. We do not know where where these viewers went, but it’s a safe bet that they did not venture into Lamestream Media territory. Perhaps they had DVR’ed “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” But they weren’t watching Fox News.

Pray for Fox News This means that the Fox News audience made a deliberate choice to avoid any exposure to the party they regard as their enemy. They refused to listen to views that Fox has convinced them are dangerous and representative of foreign, Muslim, communist, and godless pagans. They voluntarily separated themselves from the heresy that might have infected their pious souls.

That is behavior consistent with cults. They make a point of disassociating with apostates and blasphemers who might divert them from the true path. Even if those “threats” are close family members. The cult leaders demand strict loyalty. And that is precisely what Fox News gets from their disciples.

News From The Future: Viewers Tune Out Obama’s Convention Speech – Ratings Plummet

Posted by Mark NC on September 2, 2012 at 12:40 pm. NO Comments :

The Republican National Kvetch-a-Sketch wrapped up last Thursday with a speech by Mitt Romney that threatened to put the makers of Ambien out of business. The speech was mostly notable for what he left out.

The television audience for Romney’s address was less than spectacular. Nielsen reports that about 30 million people viewed the speech. That’s down 25% from the 40 million viewers of John McCain’s nomination acceptance speech in 2008. And most analysts would not have put anticipation for McCain’s speech very high.

Fox News chose to ignore the dismal ratings for what they said was the most important speech of Romney’s political life. However, that cannot be said about Fox’s coverage of the Democrat’s convention next week in Charlotte, North Carolina. My sources from the future tell me that Fox News will feature bold headlines announcing that President Obama’s popularity, measured by the television ratings for his re-nomination speech, has crumbled in comparison to 2008’s ratings. Here is the headline from Future Fox declaring that American’s have rejected Obama:

Never mind that most analysts expect the ratings to decline considering that the last time around Obama was a new face on the political scene and the first African-American ever nominated for the presidency by a major political party. And set aside the fact that Fox didn’t think that Romney’s dismal ratings were newsworthy. It’s a pretty good bet that Fox will make a different assessment should Obama’s ratings fail to match or surpass those from 2008. And should he come up short, we can expect stories to proliferate on Fox and other right-wing media celebrating the downfall of Obama.

It’s important to remember that Obama does not need to match the exceptional ratings produced by an historic election year. He simply needs to stay ahead of his opponent through election day. Prior to the GOP convention, Romney’s campaign gave a Powerpoint presentation wherein they projected that Romney would get an 11 point bounce in the post-convention polls. So far Romney’s bounce has been a statistical zilch. So their prognostications are about as reliable as their “facts” are provable.

Another interesting observation from the television ratings is that the decline for Romney occurred almost entirely on networks other than Fox News. For Fox the drop was only 2% from 2008. The other broadcast and cable networks lost between 25% and 50%. What that tells us is that Fox’s audience is still just as insular and cult-like as ever, while the other networks more accurately reflect the lower levels of engagement in the current campaign. The result is evident in the degree to which Fox viewers have such a divergent and unrealistic appraisal of the political landscape. All they know is what they see on Fox with it’s distinct biases, so they come away with far more negative views of the President and far more positive impressions of Romney’s prospects for victory.

We’ll know by next Friday whether my future correspondent is correct. If so, the results will be posted here at News Corpse. Until then, I’ll see you in the future.

Fox Nation: Historic Debacle At CNN

Posted by Mark NC on June 1, 2012 at 1:07 pm. 3 Comments :

It has been well documented that Fox News is a disreputable enterprise that shuns any semblance of journalistic ethics. The most recent example, producing and airing an anti-Obama campaign-style video, perfectly demonstrates how far afield they are from a being legitimate news organization. Amongst the traits of Fox News that separate them from the pack is their tendency to attack their peers in the news business. That is almost unheard of from other cable networks, newspapers, or other outlets.

Today Fox News continued in that vein by leaping on the Nielsen ratings reports for May 2012. To be sure, CNN’s ratings were dismal. But so were the ratings for Fox which declined double digits and notched a primetime low that they haven’t seen since 2008. Nevertheless, Fox reported only on CNN’s numbers and ignored their own sickly showing. And nowhere in their story did they note that the decline was primarily due to the inflated ratings in May 2011, when the killing of Osama Bin Laden, hurricanes in the Midwest, and Casey Anthony were dominating the airwaves.

That said, Fox is inadvertently correct about a debacle at CNN, but not the way they mean. CNN is suffering a decline in viewership that is historic mainly because they pioneered the concept of the 24 hour cable news network but are now languishing in last place. But if they are perplexed by the sorry turn of fate they have experienced in recent years it is only because of their own willful blindness to the circumstances that led to it.

When Fox News began to approach and overtake CNN in the ratings, CNN management made the foolish mistake of concluding that Fox’s success was related to their blatant conservative bias and abandonment of journalistic principles. While that was (and is) the model for Fox’s programming, that played only a small part in their success story. The real reason that Fox excelled was that they had switched the deck. They were not in any practical sense a news network. Their programming was (and is) closer to an entertainment channel than anything else. They feature shallow, sensationalistic stories that rely heavily on melodrama, controversy, emotion and sex – the main characteristics of soap operas and reality shows. And they decorate their broadcasts with flashy graphics and sound effects that would be more appropriate for game shows. That’s what draws their viewers in, and that is always more compelling than actual news content.

However, CNN panicked and decided that the way to compete with Fox was to emulate their right-wing partisanship and theatrics. Ironically, even Fox’s business network recognized that emulating Fox News was a losing strategy. Fox Business Network VP Kevin Magee sent a memo to his staff saying that…

“…the more we make FBN look like FNC the more of a disservice we do to ourselves. I understand the temptation to imitate our sibling network in hopes of imitating its success, but we cannot. If we give the audience a choice between FNC and the almost-FNC, they will choose FNC every time.”

CNN Tea Party Unfortunately, no one at CNN could grasp that simple truth. Instead they installed Ken Jautz, a rabidly right-wing promoter, as it’s chief. Jautz was the man who gave Glenn Beck his first job in television. Then CNN went on a hiring binge that consisted of the most unsavory figures from Wingnutlandia including: Amy Holmes (of Glenn Beck’s GBTV), Will Cain (of Beck’s The Blaze), Erick Erickson (of the uber-conservative blog RedState), Dana Loesch (of Breitbart News and the Tea Party), and E.D. Hill, a former Fox anchor and Bill O’Reilly guest host, who is most famous for saying that a friendly fist bump between the President and the First Lady was really a “terrorist fist jab.”

CNN demonstrated its new found rightist perspective by producing programming that was straight out of the conservative PR playbook. They were the only cable news network to broadcast live Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party response to Obama’s State of the Union address. They co-sponsored a GOP primary debate with the corrupt Tea Party Express. They also co-sponsored a debate with the ultra-right-wing Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

For a network that claims to be the only truly neutral source for news, CNN has conspicuously failed to permit a representative from MoveOn.org to respond to a presidential address, nor to co-host a debate with the Center for American Progress. They have navigated toward a full-on Foxification of the network without any pretense to objectivity or balance.

And what have they got for it? A steep collapse to last place in the ratings, an embarrassing forfeiture of credibility, a severe loss of viewer loyalty and respect, and the pleasure of becoming a target of Fox’s ridicule.

As a division of TimeWarner, CNN has the resources to brand itself as a powerhouse news provider. They have more domestic and international news bureaus than any television news enterprise. They have access to the talent and technology that could set them apart from their competitors. Yet they fail to take advantage of these assets. And worse, they squander them in the vain hope of being FoxLite.

That’s what I call an historic debacle. And it’s why CNN just posted their worst ratings in twenty years. It’s also why they are now seen as an object of sympathy as Fox News batters them in the ratings and in the press. The first step in rehabilitating themselves would be to recognize their problem and clean house. Then they would need to fight back. If they would aggressively hammer at Fox as a lightweight purveyor of lies in a flashy, soap opera package, they might just begin to recover some measure of pride and start their long trek back to legitimacy.

Not So Breitbart: Jon Stewart vs. Robot Chicken

Posted by Mark NC on April 11, 2012 at 11:54 pm. 3 Comments :

The Breibrats over at BigHollywood have once again set out to knock Jon Stewart down a peg by noting that there are other TV programs with higher ratings. I suppose I should give them credit for being able to count and to read a list, but they are still embarrassingly bad at ratings analysis, so I thought I would help them out by amending their big headline:

If the Breibart crew is intent on criticizing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for being such losers, it might have been a good idea to read a little further down the list (well, actually to the very bottom), where they would have found Fox News stars Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Then this commentary would not seem so idiotic:

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys regularly humiliated in the ratings by cartoons, reruns, and “Robot Chicken” are American phenoms…?

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys who couldn’t muster three million viewers combined are populist heroes who speak for the people…? […]

Stick that in your clown nose, you speech-policing, left-wing elitists.

Hey, maybe stop being dicks. That might help.

If Stewart and Colbert are humiliated by placing 27th and 45th, than how would the Breitbrats describe Hannity and O’Reilly showing up dead last at 99 and 100? It would seem that Stewart and Colbert are more representative spokespersons for the people than Fox’s biggest stars. And as for being dicks…I think the Breitbrats have that honor sewn up.

Today Show Ratings Down With Sarah Palin As Guest Host

Posted by Mark NC on April 4, 2012 at 3:10 pm. 10 Comments :

Yesterday Sarah Palin was the guest co-host of the Today Show on NBC. It was a desperation move on the part of NBC who was reacting to ABC’s booking of Katie Couric for the whole of this week. And apparently it didn’t do them much good.

The Today Show won the time period as expected. They have long been the #1 morning network news program with ABC’s Good Morning America coming in second. However, the ratings for Tuesday on the Today show were 5.497 million total viewers, and 2.209 million in the 25-54 year old demo. That’s down from their average for the February 2012 sweeps period (5.55 Total/2.47 Demo). So Palin obviously didn’t do anything to help out the program.

By comparison, Good Morning America was able to beat their February sweeps average in total viewers with the help of Couric. Tuesday’s program pulled in 5.141 million viewers with 1.917 million in the demo. That was an improvement in total viewers over their February sweeps averages (5.03 Total/2.05 Demo).

So if anyone were analyzing the benefits of the bookings for these programs, it is clear that ABC got more out of Couric than NBC did from Palin. That may seem to be a predictable result since America mostly hates Palin and Couric is America’s sweetheart. But Palin doesn’t help herself by appearing on NBC and twice referring to “the failed socialist policies” of President Obama. And I can’t believe that doing cooking segments with Tori Spelling do much to improve her image either.

The sooner the media (and Palin) realizes that Palin is old news and has nothing to offer, the sooner they can quit pretending that she has some sort of relevance that they can exploit. By all indications NBC might have done better in the ratings with Kim Kardashian or Octomom as a co-host.

Not So Breitbart: Daily Show vs. Cartoon Network vs. Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on March 17, 2012 at 3:23 pm. 3 Comments :

The geniuses at Breitbart.com have published another of their astounding revelations that illustrate just how mentally deficient right-wingers can be due to their fixation on bashing anything and everything they regard as liberal.

In a posting that takes obvious pleasure in their analysis of television ratings, the Breitbrats report that Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are not the highest rated programs in the universe.

Breitbrat John Nolte: Just a friendly reminder that less than 1% of the population watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. If it wasn’t for the elite media — the same elite media desperate to convince us these two are some sort of national treasures — hardly anyone would watch them at all.

Via TV By the Numbers:

TOTAL VIEWERS
Comedy Central, 11-11:30 p.m. “The Daily Show,” 1.6 million
Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m.-midnight ET, “The Colbert Report,” 1.3 million
TBS, 11 p.m.-midnight, “Conan,” 1.0 million
Adult Swim, 11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. ET, 2.1 million
Adult Swim, 12:30-1:30 a.m. ET, 1.4 million

Whatever influence Stewart and Colbert have does not come from the people; it comes from the elite. This dynamic duo of left-wing free speech oppressors are about as populist as caviar.

Wow. What a couple of losers. The Comedy Central pair of media satirists can’t even rate higher than Cartoon Network programs. And it serves them right for all that free speech oppressing they are doing [Note to Nolte: Can you provide an example of this?].

What the Breitbrats failed to notice is that their pet network, Fox News, rates even lower than the Comedy Central late night lineup. For the month of February 2012, “In total day FNC placed fifth (vs. news programming) with 1.093 million viewers.”

Ergo: Whatever influence Fox News has does not come from the people; it comes from the slack-jawed yokels. These bombastic right-wing free speech oppressors are about as populist as roadkill.

Do the Breitbrats really think that they are scoring points by attacking Stewart and Colbert, even though those shows have more viewers than Fox News? How stupid do they think their readers are? (Don’t answer that). I reported long ago that Fox had fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants in an effort to demonstrate how the perception of their influence was overly inflated. I also reported that the highest rated program on Fox (O’Reilly) has about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening News). But my comparing a news network to a cartoon network actually makes a point due to the contrast. Comparing a comedy network to a cartoon network is really not indicative of anything. Stewart is the first person to say that his program is not a news program and he is not a journalist.

The Breitbrats seem so ecstatic about this that I hate to spoil their fun. But the next time they attempt to characterize a program as irrelevant, they had better check to see if their own TV pals aren’t even less relevant. It is Fox News that is struggling to have an impact on society, and despite their best efforts, they were unable to prevent a socialist Muslim with no birth certificate from getting elected to the presidency in 2008. They aren’t having much better luck in 2012. This is partly due to idiots like the Breitbrats who continue to embarrass what’s left of the reasonable wing of conservatism.

Republicans Are Afraid Of MSNBC

Posted by Mark NC on January 20, 2012 at 6:31 pm. 8 Comments :

If you think that you have been inundated with Republican candidates yelping at one another on television for the past year, you would be right. So far there have been 17 GOP primary debates aired in a campaign season that has seen only two actual elections take place (Iowa and New Hampshire).

Here’s an interesting statistic that isn’t getting much attention. Of the 16 debates held thus far, the three major cable news networks (Fox, CNN, and MSNBC) carried eleven of them. Of those, the breakdown is five on Fox News, five on CNN, and only one on MSNBC.

Date	Network	Total Viewers	Adults 25-54
Jan. 19	CNN	5,022,000	1,717,000
Jan. 16	Fox News	5,475,000	1,573,000
Dec. 15	Fox News	6,713,000	1,865,000
Nov. 22	CNN	3,599,000	1,041,000
Oct. 18	CNN	5,468,000	1,651,000
Sept. 22	Fox News	6,107,000	1,701,000
Sept. 12	CNN	3,600,000	1,100,000
Sept. 7	MSNBC	5,411,000	1,728,000
Aug. 11	Fox News	5,053,000	1,430,000
June 13	CNN	3,162,000	918,000
May 5	Fox News	3,258,000	854,000

What makes this interesting is that the single MSNBC debate drew more total viewers than four out of the five CNN debates. It beat all of the CNN debates in the key 25-54 year old demographic. In fact, in that demo, MSNBC beat every cable news debate except for one (Fox 12/15), despite its broadcast date back in September, before the campaign had begun in earnest.

With that kind of ratings performance you might think that the Republican Party would be anxious to get their candidates in front of such a large audience of engaged voters. You would be wrong. Republicans are not rushing to put their candidates on MSNBC and there can be only one reason. They are scared.

The GOP knows that they get treated with kid gloves on Fox News. It is their home field, it is staffed by teammates, and the stands are packed with rabid fans. CNN bends over backwards to prove they are not partisan, with the result being that they are partisan to the right. They even co-hosted one of their debates with the Tea Party Express, a disreputable political action committee that raises funds for Republicans, but pays out most of the donations to the PR firm that created it. Plus, the GOP knows that they can bash CNN, to the delight of their fans, and that the network won’t lift a finger in its own defense.

That diffidence was in evidence last night when CNN’s John King opened the debate with a question for Newt Gingrich about his ex-wife’s contention that he had proposed an open marriage. Gingrich was appalled that King would start off on such a sordid subject. Frankly, so was I. It was a boneheaded move that could have only resulted in precisely what happened. Gingrich would assert his outrage, the audience would explode with approval, and King would look like an idiot. What other possible outcome could King and CNN have imagined when they brainstormed that idea? It was, plain and simple, a gift to Gingrich.

During the 2008 presidential election, Democrats deliberately embargoed Fox News due to their blatant bias against them. At that time they were accused of being afraid to face tough questioning from Fox moderators. I’m sure those same critics would now regard the Republican candidates as cowards. And Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who said that “the candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” surely feels the same about candidates who can’t face MSNBC.

Last year Republicans were advised to steer clear of the “mainstream” media altogether and restrict their debates to friendly venues. Conservative columnist Hugh Hewitt and Breitbart blogger John Nolte were amongst those who advocated this policy. I wholeheartedly agreed with them. Nothing would be better for Democrats than to have the GOP nominate their presidential banner carrier in a series of love-fests that fail to either vet the candidate nor steel him for battle.

But I also knew that they wouldn’t have the guts to follow through on that. They need the media they pretend to hate. So they will continue to fraternize with those they regard as their enemy, except for one particular foe that they just cannot abide. With the primary season winding down, the GOP may succeed in skirting MSNBC until the general election. But they will not skirt the reputation of cowardice that is evident in their evasion.

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