What’s Hot/What’s Not: 2009

2009 saw a lot of hotness and notness. Here’s the best (and worst) of the best (and worst)…

What’s Hot

Glenn Beck and FNC – Beck was seen by many as the new face for FNC and its ratings surge in 2009, a year many predicted would result in a ratings drop off for everyone since it wasn’t an election year.

Jonathan Wald departs CNBC – This caught many people by surprise.

Smoking Gun – When news broke that FNC got caught using Republican talking points in a story on the backgrounder for the Stimulus package, a lot of skeptics thought this was the smoking gun that they’d been looking for. FNC didn’t make matters any easier for itself when it issued an on air apology…for a typo in the graphic. FNC didn’t apologize for or explain how Republican talking points wound up in a backgrounder on the Stimulus package.

Twitter – Cable news embraced Twitter this year. If you were a cable news talent and you didn’t have your own Twitter account, you just weren’t cool enough. (that was sarcasm btw)

Dylan Ratigan – Ratigan’s abrupt departure from CNBC was even more jaw dropping than Jonathan Wald’s. What came next was totally out of left field; Ratigan joined MSNBC. So far though, the jury is still out on the Ratigan experiment. I can’t say for sure yet whether it will be a success or a failure.

CNN drops to 3rd in primetime Demo – This was the story CNN didn’t want to deal with. Its current argument is that news is its brand and not opinion and news ratings are cyclical depending on what’s going on. That may or may not be true (see Campbell Brown’s on again off again sometimes opinion show), but headlines, accurate or not, count for a lot. And this is a headline CNN hates, whether they publicly admit it or not.

MSNBC takes 2nd in primetime Demo – It doesn’t matter how the network got there, it got there. You can’t put a price on the kind of publicity a #2 finish does for the network in terms of prestige and morale.

Shepard Smith – Smith had a banner year in 2009. Ratings are one thing but what made the year notable for Smith was the anchor’s penchant for voicing opinions that…shall we say…run counter to a large number of viewers of his network…

GE and News Corp try to end “the feud” – This was ICN’s #1 cable news story of the year. GE tried to muzzle Olbermann and succeeded for a while. Then Brian Stelter started digging and went public. Olbermann immediately resumed “the feud” and GE caved.

FBN hires Don Imus – FBN got a lot of press, and apparently improved numbers from 6-9am ET, by hiring Don Imus. But some, including yours truly, viewed the move as a sign of weakness and an abdication of business news coverage vs CNBC during this time period. The thinking behind the move was Imus would be a ratings anchor through which FBN’s presence and numbers would rise through the day. So far it hasn’t happened. This was driven home by the departure of Alexis Glick in late December and some not at all cool public sniping by FBN regarding Glick’s numbers. FBN apparently believes that the original idea is sound but what follows Imus needs some work. I remain skeptical that Imus will ever have the kind of ratings coat tails that FBN thinks he will.

Comcast gets a controlling share of NBCU – It’s not officially approved yet but barring some unforeseen development sometime late next year Comcast will have control of NBC Universal.

Joy Behar joins HLN – And HLN’s ratings so far are the better for it…

John Stossel joins FBN/FNC – File this one under “What took so long?”

Lou Dobbs quits CNN (again) – Kibitzers saw this one coming.

John King – King was given Dobb’s slot.

What’s Not

Breaking News coverage – Too many times this year various networks found themselves putting out substandard coverage for a breaking news event in what would be considered an “off peak” time period. FNC had the commercial ridden coverage of the Continental crash. MSNBC had the almost zero coverage of NWA 253.

MSNBC and John Ziegler – You really can’t blame Ziegler for doing what he does, throwing bombs. But you can blame MSNBC for putting him on the air to do battle. First it was David Shuster who engaged Ziegler in a ridiculous interview. If that wasn’t bad enough, later in the year Ziegler returned and tried to mix it up with Contessa Brewer, who clearly wasn’t interested in an ideological fight. That was the last we saw of Ziegler on MSNBC dayside.

180 Degree Reversal – MSNBC’s decision to put its pundits (Olbermann, Madow, et al) on to anchor the inauguration of Barack Obama drew criticism for the network reversing itself after the fallout from the Matthews/Olbermann debacle at the Republican Convention last year.

Boycotts and Protests – There were several attempted boycotts and protests this year, and the results were mixed to say the least. There was an O’Reilly boycott which floundered, a Glenn Beck boycott which did nothing but re-arrange who pays what where to FNC, and a protest to get rid of Lou Dobbs.

Susan Roesgen – CNN’s Roesgen had a near meltdown on the air regarding tea party protesters. Not too long after that Roesgen was not renewed. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Teabaggery – It was juvenile for some cable news talents to refer to tea party protesters as “tea baggers”. Whatever you may think about the validity and motivation of the protesters, you can certainly criticize them without going the gutter route…

Sour Grapes? – Someone, most likely from inside MSNBC, fed Page Six a ridiculous story about Contessa Brewer having it in for Ratigan, despite the fact that MSNBC big wigs were looking at pairing Brewer with Ratigan for his show. Someone was definitely jealous…

CNN’s HD rollout – After turning its NYC studios HD well before FNC went HD, CNN has lagged well behind FNC in the HD department. Even MSNBC, the last of the big three to go HD, caught up and passed CNN in the HD department. As of this writing CNN’s DC bureau is now in full HD but Atlanta is still in faux upconverted-HD.

MSNBC’s dayside reboot – It was a mistake from the beginning and it only took 6 months of piss poor ratings, including coming in behind CNBC in 5th place in the Demo for certain hours of the day, for the network to abandon what it implemented in July. ICN was all over this story. Way out in front of everyone else. Only now with the cancellation of Dr. Nancy and the moving of Ratigan to 4pm, are the rest of the media writers belatedly playing catch up on this story. If this reads like a victory lap of sorts for yours truly, well…it is. I’m due one.

Shannon High – High was Phil Griffin’s first big hire when he took over full control of MSNBC in late 2007. Griffin called her an “all star” at the time. Well the star faded in 2009. First she was basically replaced with someone else overseeing dayside. Then she was put in charge of the heart of the July reboot. Now, with the reboot a failure, she’s the EP of Ratigan’s 4pm show (it’s unclear to me at this point if she has any input on the rest of dayside).

Michael Jackson pandering – When Jackson died the nets were all over the story like a cheap suit. It was enough to temporarily put CNN past MSNBC in the primetime Demo for a while. But it was just too much to stomache.

The White House vs. FNC – Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Birther pandering – It was the worst of cable news to give credence to this story by talking about it.

FBN ratings leaks – I got so fed up with the selective leaking regarding FBN’s numbers (by both FBN and CNBC) that I called for a boycott of all FBN numbers until it finally decides to officially rate itself. The inexplicable delay in FBN being officially rated by Nielsen remains a mystery. It’s been over two years and FBN has more subscribers than FNC did at this point in time and FNC was already officially rated.

MSNBC still not on Verizon FiOS in Cablevision markets – When oh when will this madness end?

Branding run amock – The Weather Channel has started doing news segments of, how shall I put it?, a non-weather related nature…

Neither out of sight nor out of mind – 2009, like 2008 before it, saw former MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing pop up occasionally for fill in duty on the network. Her periodic appearances continue to serve as a reminder of what a mistake it was to send her to LA in the first place. My bias regarding this matter is well known and should be taken into account when reading this. Nevertheless, having someone that sharp, knowledgeable, and professional come off the bench a few times a year on a network which could really use more of that in its dayside news operation is a sad testament to what’s going on over at 30 Rock.