Oh, Brian…what have you wrought? Anyway, the truce/deal/agreement/whatever is dead. Done. Over. Finito. O’Reilly put GE and CEO Jeffrey Immelt front and center in his talking points memo. This was followed by O’Reilly talking more GE/Immelt with Dick Morris…
Archive for August 5, 2009
Olbermann Responds to Dobbs…
Posted in CNN, FNC, MSNBC on August 5, 2009 by icn2And throws in jabs at FNC too. Meanwhile O’Reilly went after GE and Immelt. I had a choice, watch Countdown and see Olbermann go after Dobbs again or watch The Factor and see whether O’Reilly would say anything knowing he hadn’t so far. So I chose Countdown. I’ll have to watch the Factor replay at 11pm.
Olbermann’s “Rovian” Ways?
Posted in FNC, MSNBC on August 5, 2009 by icn2The Huffintgon Post’s Jason Linkins calls Keith Olbermann out for his response to the “deal”…
This reality is borne out by Olbermann’s perplexing reaction to the controversy, which has been to blow hot snot all over New York Times reporter Brian Stelter’s reporting, while simultaneously “honoring” and praising the accuracy of Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald’s response, which was based entirely on Stelter’s reporting. One cannot decry one report, one minute, and then “honor” the same conclusions the next. On Monday’s broadcast he called Brian Stelter one of history’s greatest monsters for a day. But then he declared in a statement that Glenn Greenwald’s account, which deviated not one iota from the facts Stelter presented, contained “nothing materially factually inaccurate.” This is what is known as “total B.S.”
Long after the edict of June 1 went into effect, New York Times reporter Brian Stelter sussed out the agreement between the two networks and began reporting it out. When contacted by Stelter, Olbermann could have done one of the following:
Story continues below1. Tell Stelter the unalloyed truth.
2. Refuse to comment on the record.
3. Attempt some Rovian-style parsing of the truth.Again, it’s clear that Olbermann chose that final option. What he told Stelter was this: “I am party to no deal.” But that statement has no practical meaning whatsoever. As Greenwald points out:
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Dobbs vs. Olbermann…
Posted in CNN, MSNBC on August 5, 2009 by icn2Damn it’s like a cable news battle royal this week. Now Dobbs is returning Olbermann’s fire and threatened to tell all about “his tenure at CNN if he wants to play those games”. Oooooh…
CNBC’s July Ratings…
Posted in CNBC on August 5, 2009 by icn2Daily Finance’s Jonathan Berr has CNBC talking about its July ratings slump…
CNBC, which attracts about 241,000 viewers during a broadcast day, rejects Roush’s criticism. Year-to-date through July, ratings in the key demographic and for total viewers “approximately matched our measured ratings for the first seven months of 2008,” said Jennifer Dauble, a CNBC spokeswoman. CNBC’s Web site gained 1.5 million viewers in July and its mobile WAP site saw a 2,000 percent gain in page views from a year ago. Ratings also rose in Europe and Asia, she said.
“CNBC is stronger and better than it has ever been which is probably why we just completed yet another record breaking quarter and first half for revenue and operating profit,” Dauble told DailyFinance in an email.
CNBC has the same problem that other cable news channels face: people like to tune at times of great uncertainty or turmoil. When times are getting better, they lose interest. For CNBC, there is the added problem of viewers becoming numb to the drumbeat of bad news.
Mike Huckabee Profile…
Posted in FNC on August 5, 2009 by icn2Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman profiles FBN’s Mike Huckabee…
It’s easy for television viewers to find common ground with Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate who now hosts the highly rated weekend cable news show “Huckabee” on the Fox News Channel.
In a “compassionate conservative” movement, Huckabee, 53, would be the real deal with his natural warmth and country pragmatism. Watching him connect with the studio audience at his show, it’s easy to see why he was successful on the stump.
His love of rock and roll and blues music is genuine — to the point of including a musical segment in each show and telling me that his dream guests were Paul McCartney and Keith Richards. Huckabee is a dedicated bass guitarist, himself. In fact, I spied five guitars when I interviewed him in his office at Fox’s headquarters (Fox, like MarketWatch, is owned by News Corp.
CNN Targets Cable Operators Regarding Dobbs Ad…
Posted in CNN on August 5, 2009 by icn2Wow. CNN is doing just about everything wrong it possibly could do wrong on this Birther story. First it decides the story is dead but lets Dobbs continue to discuss it on the air, giving the impression that Dobbs is off the reservation. Then Jon Klein backtracks publicly at the TCA to give Lou Dobbs some cover. Now CNN is putting pressure on cable operators not to run an ad on CNN attacking Dobbs. I’m not talking about CNN refusing to air an ad, which is predictable. But this appears to be working behind the scenes to keep the ad off of cable operators local ads which networks ostensibly have no control over (which is why DirecTV viewers have been seeing FBN ads on MSNBC the past few weeks). The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about the story…
CNN has worked with the cable operators that carry its channel to block the commercial, which was produced by the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters. According to a CNN employee who requested anonymity, CNN managers said in a morning staff meeting that the channel had invoked unspecified agreements with operators to stop the ad from running.
I could see why CNN would want to do this but if the story leaks out, which it now has, it makes the network look that much more desperate. And that’s a bad move someone should have considered before going down this route.
