Since I called out CNN earlier for blowing the Coleman coverage, I have to note that Steve Krakauer tweets that FNC opted to stay with Glenn Beck instead of covering the Franken presser (I didn’t see it. I was at the gym). Coleman’s speech was important but Franken’s wasn’t? Is that it? Bad call…
CNN & MSNBC taking Sen. Franken newser live, while FNC sticks with @GlennBeck. Wonder what O’Reilly/Hannity have to say tonight
I’m finishing up on packing for my trip to rescue my helpless snorkel but this was just too good to ignore. CNN stuck with a report on Michael Jackson during The Situation Room rather than cutting to Norm Coleman’s concession which both FNC and MSNBC were covering live. Even odder, after the Jackson Story, Suzanne Malveaux tossed to Brianna Keilar who updated the Coleman concession but still CNN would not go to Coleman live. Someone made a bad call…
Update: I’m going to hedge a bit. I watched MSNBC and FNC first and then switched over to CNN. So it’s possible that CNN dipped in to cover Coleman and then jumped to Michael Jackson prior to me tuning in. Possible…but I doubt it.
Update 2: My intuition was correct. I’ve now heard that CNN did lead of with Jackson and never went to Coleman’s speech.
Behave yourselves while I’m gone…
If you looked through my Palau/Yap photos and read the captions then you know that my snorkel got ripped off my mask by raging currents at Blue Corner. What you didn’t know is that my snorkel has built in GPS tracking. And I’ve been monitoring its progress as it drifted eastward across the Pacific. Using complex mathematical formulas in combination with an abacus, I’ve plotted its course and it’s drifting past Molokini Crater later this week. So I’m heading to Maui to try and retrieve my snorkel.
It’s like…y’know…special…first snorkel and all…
…blogging resumes July 8th..
Earlier today I speculated about whether Primetime would include the vertical graphical boxes or not. Well Newscast Studio has updated its earlier report to note that Primetime will lose the extra clutter and adds a screengrab of Morning Joe that also is missing the vertical graphics boxes.
This is really dumbfounding. During the newscast hours, or “TelePrompTer news reading” as Phil Griffin calls it, you get the full graphical whammy. The argument for doing this is to present the viewer with the most information as possible. I disagree in as much as the increased graphical clutter offsets whatever gains are made by adding more information to the screen. But that’s the argument anyways. A more cynical argument, which I do not necessarly think is a reason here, is that the camera is locked down on the newsreader so let’s toss in a bunch of moving graphics to give the TV image more punch.
But here’s the irony. It is precisely during primetime and Morning Joe, where things are more talk than news, that the viewer could use extra information in the form of graphics boxes. And yet it is primetime and Morning Joe where these widgets are dropped.
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Fierce Mobile Content’s Jason Ankeny writes about MSNBC.com teaming up with Zumobi to release an app for the iPhone and iPod touch…
Cable news network MSNBC announced the release of its MSNBC.com application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, promising breaking news, videos, photos and related content. The free, ad-supported app, developed in conjunction with mobile media firm Zumobi, features a radial interface offering efficient access to personalized news topics, NBC News and MSNBC Cable shows, blogs and Twitter feeds–users may share articles as well as track tweets from their favorite NBC News and MSNBC cable anchors. MSNBC adds that big-box electronics retailer Best Buy, the flagship advertiser for the application launch, will integrate directly with the software to link to its featured deal of the day and incorporate its own Twitter feed.
Update: MSNBC’s release…
Msnbc.com Introduces New iPhone and iPod touch Application
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CNN (1), CNBC (1), Bloomberg (1)
Bloomberg
BLOOMBERG TV COVERS THE ASPEN IDEAS CONFERENCE
StartingTuesday, BLOOMBERG TELEVISION’s® Erik Schatzker reports live from the Aspen Ideas Conference. Interviews include:
* Felix Rohatyn – President of Rohatyn Associates, former Managing Director at Lazard Freres, and former U.S. ambassador to France
* Eli Broad – Founder of KB Home
* Bob Steel – Former President/CEO, Wachovia Corp
* Jason Calacanis – CEO of Mahalo.com and founder of the “Silicon Alley Reporter” in 1996
* Douglas Holtz-Eakin – Former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic adviser to John McCain.
* Laura Tyson – An economic adviser to Obama during the campaign and now a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
____________________________
CNN
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MSNBC and FNC have been covering a car chase. You’ve got North Korea, Iran, Iraq, a financial calamity, healthcare reform…and this is the best they can do? I suppose I should be grateful since it bumped you know who’s death off the screen. But that’s damning with faint praise if you ask me…
Update: Et tu, CNN?
The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz profiles MSNBC’s Nancy Snyderman…
Finding the right tone for “Dr. Nancy,” a health and medical show that debuts today on MSNBC, is a challenge for this 52-year-old physician hanging out her shingle in the noisy cable neighborhood. With the health-care debate heating up on Capitol Hill, she hopes to educate as well as entertain.
“I know what it’s like to close up the cash register in my practice at the end of the day,” Snyderman says. “I know how to explain complicated medical questions without being condescending.”
Television doctors, such as ABC’s Timothy Johnson and CBS’s Jon LaPook, are in demand these days. CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, who withdrew as a candidate for surgeon general in March, has been hosting the weekend program “House Call” since 2003. But Snyderman’s noontime show is the first daily attempt by a network to mine the intersection between politics and health care.
“Doctors are often treated as gods, and they aren’t,” says MSNBC President Phil Griffin. “This will break down some of the mythology around doctors and medicine.”
As does the New York Daily News’ Richard Huff…
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Well, I called it. And unfortunately I was right. MSNBC blows a golden opportunity to do HD right and instead decides to inundate the viewer with too much graphical clutter. Even FNC cut back on the text boxes that they were using early on. Newscast Studio, which was fed internal test shots of MSNBC’s HD graphics prior to its launching (obviously since Hall hasn’t been on the air yet today so where did that grab of her come from?) likes the graphic overload. I don’t see why. If it’s important enough to put on the screen it should be important enough to put on the SD version of the screen. But that would put networks in a bind because nobody wants to be seen as doing a Bloomberg (of a few years ago when Bloomberg had a ton of graphics and a teeny tiny video picture). But then MSNBC has already tried that route…
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Post your reactions to the debut of Dylan Ratigan and Nancy Snyderman’s shows here…
Broadcasting & Cable’s Marisa Guthrie writes about MSNBC’s HD launch tomorrow and interviews MSNBC President Phil Griffin…
If a news network is going to attract casual viewers and turn them into loyal viewers, it helps to be in the same HD neighborhood as their cable news competitors. MSNBC in HD will launch at different times on different MSOs. It will debut on Cablevision on June 29 and on Time Warner in July. By the end of August, MSNBC HD will be available in 11 million homes.
Being part of the same HD real estate with CNN and Fox News is one thing, but brand awareness is another. “We still have to get our message out,” Griffin concedes. “This year, we’ve just been constantly trying to make noise in a positive way so that people know who we are.”
That din includes new dayside programming: The Meeting With Dylan Ratigan from 9-11 a.m., and an hour hosted by health guru Dr. Nancy Snyderman at noon, premiering with the June 29 HD launch. (Carlos Watson hosts a news headline hour at 11 a.m.)
“We’re changing dayside away from the TelePrompTer headline news to Dylan Ratigan and Dr. Nancy. And we’ll continue to do that less–of people sitting behind a desk, reading TelePrompTers,” Griffin says. “Our audience knows what’s going on. They’ve got BlackBerrys. They’re on the Web. So we’ve got to give them more.”
Riiiiiiight…that’s why FNC and CNN routinely do better on Dayside News than MSNBC by a significant amount…because their audiences know what’s going on.
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What’s Hot:
Hypocrite – Gawker ambushes FNC’s Ambusher-at-Large Jesse Watters outside his home. Watters, showing his ability to take it as well as dish it out, turns tail and runs away…or rather drives away in his car.
Mark Sanford – Sanford dominated the news cycle. Until someone died that is and then cable news lost all sense of rationality and proportionality and imitated that scene out of Jerry McGuire…”Show me the ratings!”
Olbermann and Sanford – This is hot because it’s being talked about, not because I necessarily agree (or disagree) with the way Olbermann went about reporting the story (I haven’t said publicly one way or the other how I feel actually). Olbermann went after Governor Mark Sanford for his little trip to Argentina to hook up with his mistress. Some people didn’t like how Olbermann handled it and a few posted those thoughts on Daily Kos. Whether they were real Kos people or Trolls I have no idea. But they caused a big bruhaha in either case. And that got noticed by the Right which pounced saying the Kos-ites are in disaray over Olbermann, or something to that effect. That, in turn caused Olbermann to post on Daily Kos that they should basically appear united for appearances sake and not fight in public. Or something like that. Oh, and Joe Scarborough called Olbermann out too, though he didn’t mention him by name.
What’s Not:
Selective Editing – CNBC got caught taking some iPhone comments way out of context in a report on the iPhone’s launch.
Michael Jackson Coverage – It’s like all the worst celebrity scandal coverage (Paris, OJ, Britney, Anna Nicole) rolled into one. Magnified by 10.
Huckabee debuted in HD last night, which means Studio D is now HD capable on FNC. And the Fox News Live update is also in HD now. That just leaves Studio C I believe in the non-HD category…
Keith Olbermann put up a post on Daily Kos concerning some of the criticism that’s been aimed at him over the Mark Sanford story…(via J$)
I preface this by saying, got a complaint about me, go ahead. Diarize, comment, whatever (actually those first two are your only choices – there is no ‘whatever’). There’s a chance I’ll ignore it, there’s a chance I’ll agree with it, but usually I’ll respond to it and try to explain or at least address it. I’d say “Bring It On,” but that doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning it used to.
However, be forewarned: you may be part of a plan to make it look like I’m under siege by the Left.
Step 1: Trollish person writes over-the-top critical diary (in this case, on the Mark Sanford email reading).
Step 2: Lots of defense of your undersigned diarist (thank ye).
Step 3: RW website writes piece quoting this here site: “By Wednesday, even critics on the left said Olbermann had gone too far.”
Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s Not. I’ll post the finalists on Sunday night…
MSNBC rolled out a new graphics package today, ahead of Monday’s HD launch. It may be my imagination but the crawl appears smaller (yay!)
An oddity of the graphics is the way wipes are skewed. As you can see from the above stills the part of the wipe that points back away from the viewer has an off center vanishing point. This is obviously due to the graphics being set up for HD broadcast. But I can’t draw any firm conclusion as to what it means. One of the big unanswered questions regarding MSNBC’s HD conversion is how it will do HD:
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ICN hears that with the program debuts for Ratigan and Snyderman the 2pm ET slot starting Monday will be anchored chiefly by Contessa Brewer. The hour will continue as before with Brewer occasionally being paired up with other anchors such as for the “It’s the Economy” CNBC tie in with Melissa Francis. The New York Times Edition with CNBC’s John Harwood will continue to air once a week during that hour but I don’t know whether Harwood will be paired with Brewer or with Norah O’Donnell. O’Donnell will continue as MSNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent and will fill in occasionally on the network.
CJR Daily’s Ryan Chittum torches…nay burns Maria Bartiromo rotten…to a cinder crisp…for an interview she did with Larry Summers that I must admit looks pretty bad. To be fair though, Chittum’s criticism stems from the Business Week version of a longer CNBC interview, which was edited down presumably by Business Week.
Bartiromo, whose day job, of course, is on CNBC (which explains a lot), leads off with a perfectly dumb question:
What impact would the proposed regulatory reforms have on banks and investment banks?
You’ll be shocked to know that Summers somehow was able to muddle through his answer to that one.
But you know, sometimes you’ve got to serve up the softballs early to get your subject to warm up a bit. So question No. 2:
How is this different from what the Fed has been doing for 70 years?
Kind of a weird follow-up, but maybe No. 3 will brush him back a bit:
Since most of these institutions are global, do you need an overseer in step with other economies?
What’s he going to say? “No”? A better question might have been: Do you need an international overseer to coordinate global finance rules? That might actually get an interesting thought out.
The Wall Street Journal’s David B. Wilkerson writes about MSNBC.com…
MSNBC.com has managed to score a top ranking among major news Web sites, which its general manager credits to the site’s devotion to video and key partnerships across the media spectrum.
During the 12-month period June 2008 and May 2009, MSNBC.com had the most unique visitors among current news and global events Web sites, according to Nielsen Online, topping Yahoo! (YHOO) News, CNN Digital Network, which is owned by Time-Warner (TWX), and FoxNews.com, which is owned by News Corp (NWSA), publisher of this newswire.
MSNBC.com, co-owned by Microsoft (MSFT) and NBC Universal (GE), has been helped by a ratings surge at the MSNBC cable network in the last year, which has been fueled by “Countdown” and “The Rachel Maddow Show.” MSNBC.com General Manager Charlie Tillinghast is quick to point out that there’s more to the equation, however.
“We’re also the main news site for MSN, and we have key partnerships with Newsweek, the New York Times, and parts of the business news space,” Tillinghast said in an interview. “We are the news site for all of NBC News. That’s the difference between us and CNN. CNN is a Web counterpart to its on-air product. MSNBC cable’s online component is just a subset of what’s available at MSNBC.com.”
Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici looks at a new Nielsen metric; “Fusion”…
“We used to be a television business,” says Jack Wakshlag, head of research for Turner Broadcasting. “We see our future in terms of being a multi-platform media company. Now we need a metric that will measure our power or our presence across the different platforms.”
As it happens, Nielsen, the ratings firm, recently started tracking such a metric. It’s called Nielsen Fusion, and it combines viewership and online usage data. The Fusion rankings for April show CNN with a commanding lead over both MSNBC and Fox News when it comes to reach among all viewers. (That’s looking at the full day, not just primetime.) CNN reached 125.3 million people in April, versus 105.5 milllion for MSNBC and 104.3 million for Fox.
That’s not really a surprise. CNN has always beaten Fox and MSNBC in reach, or cumulative audience. (Fox and MSNBC counter that advertisers make their buys based on ratings, not cumulative reach, which doesn’t reflect duration of viewership.) And CNN and MSNBC both have a big head start on Fox when it comes to web traffic; the Fox News Digital Network attracts fewer than half the unique visitors of the MSNBC or CNN digital networks (No. 1 and 3 among all news sites, respectively).
Bercovici also has some very pointed FNC rebuttal…
“Apparently the sheer embarrassment of getting beat by both Headline News and MSNBC along with the continued implosion of Campbell Brown and Anderson Cooper has led CNN to its latest act of desperation,” says a Fox News spokesman. “We wish Jack well in continuing to defend their battle for fourth place.”
Interesting that the timing of this article comes near the end of June…and the June ratings period. Does this foreshadow another CNN non 2nd place finish in the ratings?
What’s on your mind? On my mind is the (already) over coverage of Michael Jackson. Did Sinatra’s death generate this level of coverage? Sinatra arguably had a bigger impact on music and society during his long career than Jackson did. I think coverage of Elvis’ or Lennon’s deaths, had they died in the 24 hour news cycle we now live in, would have probably been as heavy handed.
Update: BTW, if you’re coming here to hear the latest programming and schedule changes and talent deployment for Michael Jackson, you’ve most definitely come to the wrong place. I’m staying as far away from this as is humanly possible. I managed to boycott the trial of OJ and I’m going to boycott Jackson’s death, autopsy, funeral, court cases, and any and all testimonials/specials/etc…that the nets will inflict upon us.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was all set to appear this Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos until yesterday, when Scarborough canceled because David Gregory, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” allegedly threw a fit.
“What is David Gregory so afraid of?” asked one network insider.
Stephanopoulos was first pitched to have Scarborough as a guest by Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” co-host on MSNBC, Mika Brzezinski.
“About three weeks ago, George got a handwritten note in the mail and a copy of Scarborough’s book, ‘The Last Best Hope,’ ” said our source. “The note said, ‘Would you consider putting Joe on your show?’ “
Last week, the booking was finalized. “She [Brzezinski] said she checked with all the high-ups at NBC,” said our source.
But on Wednesday night, Stephanopoulos was alerted there might be a problem. Scarborough is said to have informed him, “I’m terribly sorry, but David Gregory had a fit.” Yesterday morning, Scarborough canceled his appearance, leaving Stephanopoulos scrambling to find a replacement guest.
I have to say: I find Twitter to be the LEAST useful during big news stories like MJ. 500 Tweets saying MJ had died? No f’ing sh*t people
The Politico’s Patrick Gavin…
…and J$ sends this email in regarding Bill O’Reilly…
Anyhow now with Farah Fawcett’s death and apparently Michael Jackson’s too, his AM-taped episode is going to be a bit stale! I wish he’d just ‘do it live’!
I have a feeling the Factor will air live with a sub host…and maybe an O’Reilly phone in. Or maybe O’Reilly will return to “do it live”…
Forgot to put this up this morning. What’s on your mind?
MSNBC (1)
“MORNING MEETING” AND “DR. NANCY” LAUNCH MONDAY, JUNE 29 ON MSNBC
NEW YORK – June 25, 2009 – “Morning Meeting,” anchored by Dylan Ratigan, and “Dr. Nancy,” hosted by NBC News Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman, launch Monday, June 29 on MSNBC, as the network begins telecasting in 1080i High Definition for the first time. “Morning Meeting” will telecast weekdays, 9-11 a.m. ET; “Dr. Nancy” airs weekdays 12-1 p.m. ET.
“Morning Meeting” will tackle different topical and controversial topics with the country’s best experts to engage the audience in compelling conversation about the news of the day.
Ratigan was most recently anchor and co-creator of CNBC’s “Fast Money,” co-anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” and has also been a regular contributor to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Prior to joining CNBC, Ratigan served as a Global Managing Editor at Bloomberg News until March 2003. Ratigan previously worked as a regular on-air contributor to ABC News and has published articles in newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune. He began his career at The Portsmouth Herald in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
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Someone has them out for Ratigan and Gawker is the method of delivery…
Dylan Ratigan’s new MSNBC show launches next week. To judge by this audio, sent by a tipster, of Ratigan berating a producer during a commercial break, his new colleagues must be thrilled to have him.
The tape dates to last summer, when Susan Krakower, a CNBC executive and co-creator with Ratigan of Fast Money, dared to speak into his earpiece during a commercial break in the newscast. Ratigan didn’t like that—it seems the pair had been going through some communication problems:
I’m available all day, every day, and yet you choose not to communicate with me in any way, shape, or form. So I consider it rude and disrespectful on your part, Susan, to decide to communicate with me for the first time in months in the commercial break between the A and the B block…. You’re effectively a liar. You lie to me routinely.
Related: The Huffington Post’s Linda Milazzo criticizes the choice of Ratigan for a new show…
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Last night on Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked about the Sanford affair in a way that has rubbed some people the wrong way (video here and here). It started on Daily Kos with first one and then a second posting being devoted to the subject. This morning Joe Scarborough weighed in hard. Via Chickaboomer…
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Scarborough” 6:43a today: “I was embarrassed by some cable news hosts, some frankly on this network… Unbridled glee.”
“Some of these people judging last night. You could call them the Jim and Tammy Bakker of cable news.”
Update: NewsBusters has video of Scarborough’s complaint…
