![](\"\/Pix\/Charts\/countdown-nbc.jpg\"\/)
<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\nFor 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, averages about 2 million viewers a day. The lowest<\/em> rated network news program (CBS) pulls in over 6 million. So graduating to the network opens millions of doors to a cablecaster.<\/p>\n Olbermann, not surprisingly, benefited from this. The early results<\/a> show him with 4.1 million viewers. That only earned him a third place finish, behind “60 Minutes”<\/em> and “America’s Funniest Videos,”<\/em> but it was good enough to quadruple his average MSNBC audience. What’s more, (and this has to hurt) it is twice what Bill O’Reilly does on an average night. And this despite having been preempted<\/a> in some fairly significant markets (i.e. Philadelphia, Baltimore) which could adversely impact Countdown’s numbers.<\/p>\n The content of the show was not, in my opinion, representative of Olbermann’s best work. It seemed to me that either he, or the network, was holding back a bit. There were also extended humor segments that weighted the episode a little more to silliness than usual. Nonetheless, it may turn out to be the wise approach if viewers are more comfortable getting their news with a spoonful of aspartame. Still, I hope that if he gets another at bat, the network lets Olbermann be Olbermann. The show is the fastest growing program on cable news for a reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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, averages about 2 million viewers […]<\/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_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":[26,23],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ratings","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-keith-olbermann"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-9i","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":352,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=352","url_meta":{"origin":576,"position":0},"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 "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":589,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=589","url_meta":{"origin":576,"position":1},"title":"Post NBC: Countdown Jumps, O’Reilly Slumps","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/4\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"On August 26, 2007, Keith Olbermann's Countdown was broadcast on NBC. Despite a scattered schedule wherein the program was delayed or preempted in many markets, it performed respectably, delivering 4.1 million viewers. But what I was waiting for, was to see if there would be any afterglow that reflected on\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":936,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=936","url_meta":{"origin":576,"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 "General"","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":576,"position":3},"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 "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":107,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=107","url_meta":{"origin":576,"position":4},"title":"FOX Ratings In Free Fall","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/28\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The just released February ratings (pdf) for cable news networks tell a tale that is decidedly downbeat for Fox News. In a comparison with February 2005, the numbers for every network are up except for Fox. This may come as some surprise to Bill O'Reilly who, in a moment of\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":597,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=597","url_meta":{"origin":576,"position":5},"title":"The O’Reilly Fracture: Countdown To Victory Edition","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/10\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Keith Olbermann's Countdown has reached a milestone that many thought was out of reach. After getting a boost from an airing during the pre-season football broadcast on NBC a couple of weeks ago, Countdown has burst into a real competition with its nemesis, The O'Reilly Factor. The highpoint of the\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","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=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Glenn](\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/Charts\/beck-cnn.jpg\")
<\/a>This is a significant performance, because success is not guaranteed just by changing your address. Last month, Glenn Beck moved up to CNN from Headline News and barely scraped up<\/a> the viewers he routinely got at his less-watched network. And he underperformed Paula Zahn, for whom he was filling in, by a whopping 23%.<\/p>\n