The above grab was taken from The Factor’s website. Note the bottom item on GE = the new Enron. It was supposed to air tonight (Monday). J$ said that on Fox and Friends this morning they talked about it at least three times. So what happened? Why didn’t the story air? Was it spiked? If so, why?
Update: Mediate’s Steve Krakauer reports that the segment is set for Tuesday night tonight…
What’s Hot:
Fight! – It’s like someone spiked all the cable news talking heads’ drinks or something. What an inflammatory week it was and it was centered around one Mr. Olbermann. In what is viewed by many as a face saving maneuver after the Times deal story broke, Olbermann renewed his fight with FNC and O’Reilly. FNC and O’Reilly renewed its feud with him GE. Dobbs and Olbermann traded punches for three nights straight.
What’s Not:
Don’t say that word – CNN apparently strong armed cable operators to keep an anti-Lou Dobbs birther ad off its air. This whole birther story is a textbook example of how to make a PR mess out of a situation. Practically every step in the process for CNN has been the wrong one.
Keith Olbermann – No matter how Olbermann tries to parse the “deal” and what his role was, or wasn’t, his resumption of attacks on O’Reilly & Co, now rings rather hollow…
NBC News – Letting Olbermann renew his assaults on O’Reilly & Co, in spite of clear signalling by GE that it considered the feud dead, says a lot. And none of it any good. But mainly it shows just how much power Keith Olbermann does wield at MSNBC and just how scared NBC is of losing its first real foothold in the primetime landscape that it would allow a situation to contiune as caustic as this one is for the network and its parent GE.
Lou Dobbs – The birther story isn’t going away and Dobbs is catching all the heat. Picking a fight with Olbermann just keeps the story alive.
Town Hall Mania – Where’s the story? It was a given that the coverage would turn out this way. Take a politically charged issue with big financial interests backing both sides, put a bunch of people in a room with the cameras on…and bang. You get what you get. But did we learn anything?
CNBC (1)
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The one-hour special will feature profiles of five companies that made it onto this year’s list of FORTUNE’s Fastest Growing Companies, which hits newsstands on Monday, August 17th, including the company that earned the #1 spot. The companies are ranked on revenue, earnings growth and their stock returns over the past three years.
Read more »
The LA Times’ Matea Gold writes about Don Imus maybe joining FBN…
The provocative and popular radio host is in final negotiations with the financial news network, which plans to simulcast his syndicated early-morning radio show, possibly from 3 to 6 a.m. Pacific time, as MSNBC did, according to a source familiar with the discussions. No deal is in place yet between the two parties, but if the talks conclude as anticipated, the arrangement could start sometime in September.
What this story or Mediaite’s analysis of said story doesn’t say: If this goes through, this should be seen as a capitulation by FBN to CNBC. It’s not getting the viewers. And it’s enough of a problem that FBN would seriously entertain the notion of blowing away its brand and abandoning business viewers by putting a bomb thrower like Don Imus on the air.
Sure, it should add viewers to FBN’s struggling ratings. But at what cost? Whatever gains FBN gets by putting a non-business show on the air…and don’t let that FBN insider’s quote to Mediaite (“An insider tells us the show would “incorporate more business elements” if it was simulcast on FBN.”) fool you…there’s not that much wiggle room for FBN in regards to altering Don Imus’ format, considering he still has to answer to his radio listeners who don’t tune in for business news…the bottom line is despite whatever gains FBN gets in ratings, they’re more than offset by the undermining of its brand.
The early morning hours are where the overseas markets are covered and overnight business news revealed ahead of the day’s open. Currently FBN goes head to head with CNBC in this time period. If Imus joins FBN, CNBC gets nearly exclusive coverage and retrenches its “claim” as the “real” business news leader. That’s a big deal, no matter how FBN would try and spin it. I would expect CNBC to make a lot of hay out of this. And why not? This would be a sign of weakness and, by my scorecard, the first real mis-step FBN would have made since launch. Can you see Imus talking S&P or The Fed or Sarbanes-Oxley? I can’t.
This move would also be seen in some quarters as a slap at Alexis Glick, though I’m sure FBN would move quickly to see that story doesn’t take hold, given her stature at the network, by repositioning her somehow. It’s her timeslot that would be gutted here. She would only be doing the 9-10 am hour, unless FBN intervenes somehow.
What’s on your mind? Mine was on sleep which is why I forgot to post this…
I was forced to leave the blog for a few days while the “deal” story was still playing itself out. Consequently it’s only now (Monday at 3:40 am PST…gulp!) that I’m only getting to Brian Stelter’s New York Times story which he put up late Friday. What’s Hot/What’s Not will be delayed until later today…
It remains to be seen whether the personal attacks will be halted again. Fox’s stance on Friday suggested that the corporate criticism would not.
“At this point,” a Fox spokeswoman said Friday, “the entire situation is more about major issues at NBC and G.E. than it is about Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann.”
J$ is reporting that O’Reilly will renew his GE assault on Monday’s Factor…
