In Depth: MSNBC’s Money Losing Doc Block?

When The Last Word launched a couple of months ago, my eyebrows were raised by the fact that it would only be a M-Th program with MSNBC’s Friday Doc Block going on the air at 10pm ET. As the Last Word’s somewhat impressive out of the gate ratings remained steady, I started wondering if the network was making a strategic error in clinging to that Friday Doc Block. Well now the evidence is in and the results are pretty conclusive.

ICN went back the past six weeks to track the ratings for MSNBC at 10pm ET. The best the Friday doc block could do at 10pm was a P2+ of 425,000 and a P25-54 Demo of 223,000. When compared to the ratings of the Last Word during the same period, the results showed that the best ratings the Friday Docs at 10pm could do during that time never came close to beating The Last Word in Total Viewers and only managed to beat it in the Demo four times. That’s four times out of a possible 23 (MSNBC’s Election Night broadcast was excluded from this survey) or a little better than 1/6th of the time. And that doesn’t factor in nights where O’Donnell wasn’t there, which may or may not have contributed to those four low nights (I don’t know since I don’t have the data on which nights O’Donnell was out).

To add further color to this story, looking at all of the Friday performances for the Doc block at 10pm, there was only three times that all six docs beat The Last Word at least one time the past six weeks. Four of those Docs also beat the Last Word three times.

Press Releases: 11/22/10

CNBC (2)

CNBC’s PRICE OF ADMISSION: AMERICA’S COLLEGE DEBT CRISIS PREMIERES TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21ST AT 9PM ET

CNBC’s “Price of Admission: America’s College Debt Crisis”

As millions of American families struggle to cope with college costs that are rising at twice the rate of inflation, CNBC investigates a system that encourages widespread borrowing—often with little regard to a student’s ability to pay—leaving the average college graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Unlike most forms of borrowing, student loans carry almost no consumer protections. The debt cannot be refinanced, nor can it be wiped out in bankruptcy. It can even outlive the student, leaving parents and surviving family members on the hook. With rising student loan debt comes rising defaults, but critics say colleges and universities—both non-profit and for-profit—as well as student loan companies are hiding the true default rates in order to keep the flow of government loan money going. How long can the system be sustained? Are student loans the next subprime mortgages? And if the bubble bursts, who will pay the price? CNBC speaks to borrowers, lenders, and school administrators to measure the real PRICE OF ADMISSION to the nation’s higher education system.

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CNBC ORIGINAL TAKES VIEWERS BACK INSIDE THE $100 BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS OF MARIJUANA

One-Hour Documentary Reported by CNBC’s Trish Regan to Premiere on CNBC on Wednesday, December 8th at 9PM ET/PT

CNN en Espanol Graphics Overhaul…

CNN Observations has screengrabs of CNN en Espanol graphics changes which bring it more in line with CNNI and CNN Domestic…

Free for All: 11/22/10

What’s on your mind?

Conor Hanna Joins Team Morgan at CNN…

The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade writes that Conor Hanna has left The Daily Mirror to join his one time boss Piers Morgan at CNN…

Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace has revamped his team following the decision by his deputy, Conor Hanna, to seek his fortunes with former Mirror editor Piers Morgan in the US.

Hanna is joining CNN in what is termed as “a senior TV executive position”. In reality – as Monkey revealed a couple of weeks ago – he’ll be working for Morgan, who is due to take over the channel’s interview spot from Larry King.