Cenk Uygur Profile…
The LA Times’ James Rainey profiles Young Turk Cenk Uygur. This normally wouldn’t make ICN except there’s these telegraphing paragraphs which indicates MSNBC’s unofficially official participation in the article…
Uygur has been working for a decade or more to get to his current heady place. “The Young Turks” online revenue hit the equivalent of $1 million a year in July, according to Uygur. A new “TYT Sports” channel is due to launch Wednesday. And recent ratings show that the 40-year-old host outdrew MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan on the five days he replaced the daytime host in July and August. (While Ratigan averaged 276,000 viewers in August, Uygur drew an average of 293,000.)
Cable executives hope fill-in hosts can at best hold on to the audiences they inherit. But MSNBC insiders said they believe Uygur did so well because many of those who watch his three-hour weekday Web program, (3 to 6 p.m. PDT) or clips on his YouTube channel jumped to MSNBC when Ratigan was out.
And this one…
MSNBC President Phil Griffin called Uygur “part of our family” and expects him to get “more and more” air time, though he declined to specify in what time slots.
Read between the lines and you get the impression Uygur is destined for an MSNBC program. But the questions are when and at what time? If Uygur is turning in those kinds of numbers as a fill-in it will put the heat on everyone else who isn’t. Given Ed Schultz’s recent self-inflicted wounds, he should be the most worried. Don’t expect Uygur to take another dayside hour away from news though. With Martin Bashir destined for 3pm ET, dayside is not going to get touched. No way would MSNBC put Uygur on before Bashir. But Hardball might be a target at 5pm but that would mean Matthews would have to do his 7pm show live all the time (they could opt run Matthews tape delayed at 7pm but I don’t think that would be feasible long term). And, of course the fact that Uygur out performed Ratigan in his own hour combined with the fact that someone leaked out that Uygur outperformed Ratigan in his own hour, puts pressure on Ratigan to deliver stronger numbers.
Inside Cable News 
September 7, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Although I personally agree with much of what Ed Schultz is angry about, his show is still too toxic to sit through. Uygur is just as liberal and pissed off as Ed, but in a more palatable way. Bye bye, Ed.
September 7, 2010 at 9:52 pm
“Uygur is just as liberal and pissed off as Ed, but in a more palatable way. Bye bye, Ed.”
Haha. Without meaning to, you basically summed up MSNBC: Nutty. Uygur actually believes Obama is a conservative. Crazy has a stranglehold over there.
September 7, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Liberal does not equal “nutty” anymore than conservative does. There’s nuts on both sides, but they’re not all nutty. Cenk is an intelligent liberal. Period.
September 8, 2010 at 4:47 am
Although I’m not a big Ed Schultz fan: I think of the three slots discussed for a Uygur show his is now out of the running. He had great ratings in August, his Beck feud and the upcoming Washington march he’s promoting pretty much give him cover.
I’m not sure why Spud thinks Matthews can’t do Hardball live at 7PM. Does he have to be home by a certain hour? If so CU could do the 7PM show which would make a better fit anyway.
As to Ratigan I think a cabbage could get better ratings and his days are numbered.
September 8, 2010 at 5:49 am
If they are planning on giving him his own hour, then they should definitely get rid of the Hardball re-run (or in this case the first run at 5pm).
Or they could wait and see how O’Donnell does at 10pm – I don’t think O’Donnell is going to carry Maddow’s audience over the same way a Cenk Uygur would be able to.
September 8, 2010 at 10:05 am
To heck with Chunk, give Jill Pike a show. She is gorgeous!
September 8, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I think that’s a little harsh, BL. Ratigan might not be getting the ratings MSNBC wants, but nobody accepted him to kill in that hour. He has a great economic mind and could hold up in a debate with anybody, but is still very polite to people who appear on his show, liberal or conservative. Uygur, mind you, is the same way.
Regardless of Ratigan’s numbers, I don’t think he’s going anywhere. Phil Griffin loves him, and would be stupid to give up on him at an hour that is tough to get ratings in, anyway. By the way, Ratigan didn’t have a strong following when he came to MSNBC. Barely anybody knew him when he was at CNBC, whereas Uygur is seen a lot on YouTube, with a strong fan base.