{"id":597,"date":"2007-09-10T17:55:58","date_gmt":"2007-09-11T00:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=597"},"modified":"2007-11-28T13:39:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-28T21:39:00","slug":"the-oreilly-fracture-countdown-to-victory-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=597","title":{"rendered":"The O&#8217;Reilly Fracture: Countdown To Victory Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Keith Olbermann&#8217;s Countdown has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediabistro.com\/tvnewser\/ratings\/the_scoreboard_friday_sept_7_66674.asp\" target=\"_blank\">reached a milestone<\/a> 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&#8217;Reilly Factor.<\/p>\n<table width=\"140\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"10\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tr>\n<td style=\"color:#993333\">\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/Pix\/Charts\/countdown-post-nbc-2.jpg\"\/><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>The highpoint of the week for Olbermann was Friday when he bested O&#8217;Reilly in the 25-54 demo by 39,000 viewers. But the trend has been heading this way for a while. On Thursday, O&#8217;Reilly took the hour, but Olbermann had won the first half (Countdown: 408K &#8211; Factor: 373K). An average of all airings for the shows for the week gave O&#8217;Reilly a lead of just 11.7K demo viewers. A year ago O&#8217;Reilly was clobbering Olbermann by 279K. Are the walls closing in around you Billy?<\/p>\n<p>The first full week after Olbermann&#8217;s NBC appearance, Countdown spiked 17% over its 2nd quarter 2007 average. This week that bump is 37%, so there is no evidence that this train is losing speed. The Factor, on the other hand, is still under-performing its 2nd quarter average by 16%. O&#8217;Reilly is quickly becoming the Little Train That Couldn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>A key point in this victory is that, while last week&#8217;s success was achieved with O&#8217;Reilly on vacation, this week Bill was on duty and he still got his loofah handed to him. Also, for the record, Olbermann appeared during halftime on the Saints-Colts game Thursday which might have given him an extra push on Friday. And the week was shortened by the Labor Day holiday (Countdown did not air on Monday but O&#8217;Reilly did. The Factor pulled in just 329K which was its 2nd worst number for the week).<\/p>\n<p>All of this leads me to quote from the insightful analysis of a truly visionary media scholar:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">Hopefully NBC will recognize what&#8217;s happening here. And it isn&#8217;t just that Olbermann is a phenomenon who warrants additional network attention (although that&#8217;s true). It is also that there is a vastly underserved market for mainstream progressive news that is factual and compelling. That is a message that all of the media should heed and act on. It&#8217;s time to stop coddling losers like Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson. It&#8217;s time to stop pandering to rightist, corporate media. It&#8217;s time to start reshaping the media into something more diverse and representative of America.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>  <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=589\" target=\"_blank\">Mark @ News Corpse ~ September 4, 2007<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By the way&#8230;Happy Birthday Bill-O.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keith Olbermann&#8217;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&#8217;Reilly Factor. The highpoint of the week for Olbermann was Friday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[26,23],"class_list":["post-597","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-9D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":589,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=589","url_meta":{"origin":597,"position":0},"title":"Post NBC: Countdown Jumps, O&#8217;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 &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":597,"position":1},"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":597,"position":2},"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":653,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=653","url_meta":{"origin":597,"position":3},"title":"Olbermann Tops O&#8217;Reilly Again","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/22\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It happened again last Friday. Keith Olbermann's Countdown beat Bill O'Reilly's Factor in the key 25-54 demo. And this time it was without the benefit of an NBC appearance to boost Olbermann's numbers. 10\/19\/07 5p:6p:7p:8p:9p:10p:11p: FNCBigStory: Hume: Shep: O'Reilly: H&C: Greta: O'Reilly: \u00a0143201257238248253 218 CNN Blitzer: Dobbs: Blitzer: Honest: King:\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":1121,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":597,"position":4},"title":"And The Winner Is &#8230; Keith Olbermann&#8217;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 &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":576,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":597,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","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=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}