{"id":1164,"date":"2009-01-02T16:50:03","date_gmt":"2009-01-03T00:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1164"},"modified":"2009-01-02T16:50:03","modified_gmt":"2009-01-03T00:50:03","slug":"msnbc-celebrates-strongest-2008-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1164","title":{"rendered":"MSNBC Celebrates Strongest 2008 Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, MSNBC has demonstrated its dominance over the stodgy CNN and the rightist snake oil of Fox News. MSNBC’s programming grew more than twice as much<\/a> as Fox during 2008:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The fact that this was an election year raised the numbers of all of the players, but in the end Fox took its usual place at the bottom of the scale of growth. On the other hand, MSNBC was the only network to finish the year with more viewers post-election than their average for the year. That’s because their rate of increase far exceeded what was given back after November 4, when audiences predictably declined.<\/p>\n

As the new year kicks off, the battle for cable news supremacy will only heat up. MSNBC will continue to rely on of its powerhouse one-two punch of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the Rachel Maddow Show. Both programs continue to drive the network’s growth. CNN is sticking with the status quo. Their schedule is little changed for the year, with the exception of adding Campbell Brown, who hasn’t really made her presence known.<\/p>\n

Fox News, however, is making several changes that seem to be geared to digging an even deeper conservative hole. This year saw the hiring of right-wing stalwarts like Karl Rove, Judith Miller, and Mike Huckabee, as well as Foxocrats and Obama opponents Lanny Davis and Howard Wolfson. In addition to that, they are losing Alan Colmes and debuting what they call a new “pure”<\/em> Sean Hannity solo show. I’m sure they are happy to have filtered out the contaminants. Hannity also signed a multimillion dollar contract renewal, as did Bill O’Reilly. Brett Baier, a reliable Fox ideologue, is succeeding Brit Hume as anchor of their signature news program, Special Report. And later this month will see the premiere of Glenn Beck’s new program on the network for which he was born to work. His obnoxious, immature, fact-free squealing will fit right in on Fox.<\/p>\n

These uber-conservative reinforcements called in by Fox News suggest that they are preparing for a new offensive directed at the incoming administration of Barack Obama. It’s hard to see any other justification for such a hardening of their right flank when political winds are shifting in a more centrist, post-partisan direction. Consequently, in the new year, Democrats and progressives had better be vigilant and prepare for an onslaught of contemptuous attacks from the Murdochian Empire. Their troops are amassed on the border and the rising sun is illuminating a determined and disturbing red dawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, MSNBC has demonstrated its dominance over the stodgy CNN and the rightist snake oil of Fox News. MSNBC’s programming grew more than twice as much as Fox during 2008: The fact that this was an election year raised the numbers of all of the players, but in the end Fox took its usual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[26,42,33,44,23,22,120,129],"class_list":["post-1164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ratings","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-cnn","tag-fox-news","tag-glenn-beck","tag-keith-olbermann","tag-msnbc","tag-rachel-maddow","tag-sean-hannity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-iM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1133,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1133","url_meta":{"origin":1164,"position":0},"title":"Post-Election Cable News Ratings: Good News For MSNBC","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/19\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The presidential election was a boon for the news business, especially cable TV news. All three players boosted their year-ago numbers, but it was not an equal opportunity affair. NetworkPrev Week +\/-Prev Year +\/- Fox-30+40 CNN-58+36 MSNBC+40+143 Once again, MSNBC delivered far stronger growth numbers than any of its competitors.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":501,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=501","url_meta":{"origin":1164,"position":1},"title":"Another Runaway Quarter For MSNBC","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/4\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The 2nd quarter of 2007 (PDF) has delivered another in a string of victories for MSNBC. The network's growth of 50% over its 2006 performance far outshines CNN (4%) and Fox (5%). The chart below tells the story for the past four quarters. While still in third place, there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3137,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3137","url_meta":{"origin":1164,"position":2},"title":"Keith Olbermann Suspended For Acting Like Fox","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/5\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"MSNBC released this notice today regarding their primetime host, Keith Olbermann: \"Msnbc TV host Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely on Friday for making campaign donations to three Democratic congressional candidates, apparently in violation of NBC News ethics policy. \" Upon learning of Olbermann's contributions MSNBC took swift and decisive action\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34603,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=34603","url_meta":{"origin":1164,"position":3},"title":"WTF is Going On at MSNBC? Recent Hires Have a Distinctly Fox News Flavor","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/9\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Three months into Donald Trump's administration there is more cause than ever for critical analysis of Washington politics. But much of the press is having trouble countering Trump's \"Reality TV\" dramatization of news. They attempt to achieve a false balance by presenting opposing views, even if one side is truthful\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rachel Maddow","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-up-down.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-up-down.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/maddow-up-down.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":1164,"position":4},"title":"And The Winner Is … Keith Olbermann’s Countdown","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/4\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It has been a long campaign, but the tally is finally in. Last week Keith Olbermann's Countdown beat the O'Reilly Factor every day in the key 25-54 audience demographic. Here is the five day average for the primetime cable news programs: ProgramViewers Countdown1180 Rachel Maddow1063 O'Reilly Factor1020 Hannity & Not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1109,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1109","url_meta":{"origin":1164,"position":5},"title":"The Race Tightens – For Cable News That Is","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/29\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The election season has been a boon to the cable TV biz. All three of the news networks have enjoyed higher ratings. But the distribution of the audience expansion has not been exactly equal. Fox News, the long-time leader, retains its position and moves up from fourth to second. CNN\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}