{"id":4712,"date":"2011-06-22T15:42:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T22:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4712"},"modified":"2011-06-23T11:25:31","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T18:25:31","slug":"keith-olbermanns-new-countdown-premieres-to-strong-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4712","title":{"rendered":"Keith Olbermann&#8217;s New Countdown Premieres to Strong Ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Monday night marked the return of Keith Olbermann to television. His new program on Current TV was closely modeled on the old MSNBC version. What everybody has been waiting to find out is whether or not his previous audience would find him farther up the dial.<\/p>\n<p>Well, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediapost.com\/publications\/?fa=Articles.printFriendly&#038;art_aid=152868\" target=\"_blank\">they did<\/a>. The new Countdown pulled in 179,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demographic. Of course that is not as much as he was drawing at MSNBC, but Current is in only about two-thirds the number of homes (60 million vs. 95 million). Nevertheless, Olbermann drew in excess of two-thirds of his prior viewers. And he handily beat CNN&#8217;s <em>&#8220;In the Arena&#8221;<\/em> with Eliot Spitzer (89,000).<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, Olbermann increased Current&#8217;s average audience for the time period by 600%. That&#8217;s significant because the move to Current has always recognized the need to build the network&#8217;s audience and distribution. It is interesting to note that when Olbermann began on MSNBC they were in roughly the same number of homes as Current is in now. Olbermann was a key factor in putting MSNBC on the map, and Current is hoping that he will do the same for them.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s important, however, to keep these numbers in perspective. They represent a single day of programming &#8211; the premiere day. That could mean that subsequent days may fall off. Or it could mean that fans who haven&#8217;t yet found the homestead may do so and the numbers will rise. The only numbers that will have any real meaning are those released after the first year so that a longer-term trend can be observed. And in that time Current promises other schedule changes that will have an impact on future performance.<\/p>\n<p>Today Olbermann and his fans can enjoy this morsel, but the main course has not yet been served. So be patient and stay hungry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday night marked the return of Keith Olbermann to television. His new program on Current TV was closely modeled on the old MSNBC version. What everybody has been waiting to find out is whether or not his previous audience would find him farther up the dial. Well, they did. The new Countdown pulled in 179,000 [&hellip;]<\/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":[864,23],"class_list":["post-4712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ratings","tag-current-tv","tag-keith-olbermann"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-1e0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":576,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":4712,"position":0},"title":"Countdown Up On NBC","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/27\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night's broadcast of Countdown on the mothership, NBC, was a major coup for Keith Olbermann and his MSNBC program. For all the clamoring for attention that goes on amongst the cable news kiddies, they are all fighting for slices of a relatively small pie. The ratings leader, Bill O'Reilly,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=271","url_meta":{"origin":4712,"position":1},"title":"The Olbermann Steamroller Still Rolling","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/1\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Ratings for the cable news nets have been released and October 2006 to October 2005 comparisons again look sweet for Countdown. MSNBC scored hefty gains driven by Olbermann's 61% rise in viewers 25-54. His total viewer increase was 67%, while O'Reilly's dropped (again) 22%. Countdown improved more than any of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":936,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=936","url_meta":{"origin":4712,"position":2},"title":"The Rise Up Of Countdown","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/3\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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. For most of the past\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":352,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=352","url_meta":{"origin":4712,"position":3},"title":"Olbermann Re-ups At MSNBC With New NBC Gig","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/15\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Keith Olbermann has built Countdown into the fastest growing cable news program. He is the most watched MSNBC primetime personality and his show is driving the network's ratings surge. Now MSNBC is announcing that Olbermann's contract has been renewed for four more years. More significantly, he is being given new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1286,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1286","url_meta":{"origin":4712,"position":4},"title":"Cable News Trek: The Next Generation","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/3\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Fox News has been reveling in their post-election ratings bump. By all appearances it is really just a pity party for the losers who are congregating at the Fox water cooler to assuage their misery. But I have to give them credit for having such unparalleled devotion to their demon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":671,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=671","url_meta":{"origin":4712,"position":5},"title":"Tucker Carlson Gets A Vote Of No Confidence","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/23\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712","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=4712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4728,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions\/4728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}