Press Releases: 09/24/12
MSNBC (1)
“MADDOW” AND “THE LAST WORD” #1 IN DEMO – WEEK OF SEPT 17-21
“The Rachel Maddow Show” and “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” Rank #1 for Week of Sept. 17-21 Among A25-54
“The Ed Show” has Best Week Ever
NEW YORK – September 24, 2012 – MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” at 9 p.m. ET and “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” at 10 p.m. ET both were #1 for the week among the A25-54 demo. For the week, Maddow was #1 with 567,000 while FNC’s “Hannity” was second with 500,000 and CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” placed third with 198,000. The is the first time Maddow has topped “Hannity” in the demo and “The Rachel Maddow Show’s” best weekly ratings performance since the week of Jan. 19, 2009 . “The Last Word” (Monday – Thursday) at 10 p.m. had 508,000 A25-54. FNC’s “On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren” was second with 427,000 and CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” was third with 224,000. This was the best week ever for “The Last Word” and the best delivery in the time period since week of Nov. 3, 2008.
MSNBC primetime (8-11p) placed second for the week with 489,000 A25-54 (FNC was first with 509,000 A25-54) and had the best weekly performance in more than two and a half years – since the week of January 19. 2009.Other highlights for the week:
· “Morning Joe” (6-9 a.m.), celebrating the show’s five year anniversary last week, has best week since May 2, 2011
· “The Cycle” at 3 p.m. has the program’s best week ever and MSNBC’s best performance at 3 p.m. since July 4, 2011
· “Martin Bashir” at 4 p.m. has the program’s best week ever and best delivery in the time period since Jan. 19, 2009
· “Hardball” with Chris Matthews at 5 p.m. had its best week since Jan. 19. 2009
· “PoliticsNation” with Al Sharpton has its best week ever and the best week in the time period since Nov. 3, 2008
· At 7 p.m., “Hardball” has its best week since Jan. 19, 2009
· “The Ed Show” has the program’s best week ever and the best week in the time period since Sept. 7, 2009
September 25, 2012 at 5:36 am
Obviously the election plays a role in these numbers and I expect the trend to continue until after the new POTUS is inaugurated in January. After that, will things return to normal? Who knows.
The other big takeaway form these numbers is the really bad performance by CNN. The whole network is spiraling downward as November 6th approaches. It seems pretty obvious that without a wholesale format change coupled with a talent and management overhaul the network may soon cease to be relevant.
The problem is that they now can’t become a successful opinion network because both sides of the ideological spectrum have been taken by other networks. The center obviously doesn’t work and so do they change to a non news network or just muddle along until profits start to drop low enough that TW pulls the plug. again who knows.
September 26, 2012 at 6:35 pm
^ well said fritz3. MSNBC got a huge bounce post-convention and CNN landed with a thud. For the last couple years they have been throwing spaghetti on the wall just to see what sticks. Unfortunately, the whole pile of pasta fell on the floor and NOTHING stuck. Taking a political side is just not an option. Competing with Fox or MSNBC on politics won’t work. They need to dial back the politics and focus more on policy. Deeper stories and analysis. After the Romney 47% gaffe, there was a plethora of analysis on printed news websites about who makes up the 47%, who pays taxes, what effects to each candidates policies have on people of limited means. After a while, I forgot the gaffe (until I watched MSNBC) and enjoyed the time where there was a real policy discussion. Should we tax soldiers and social security recipients, do we need to adjust the EITC, how much do the rich pay relative to income. All good discussions and none of which were covered very well by CNN, at least what I saw. It was more about whether or not it hurt Romney.
If they really wanted to make the sparks fly, they could challenge Fox and MSNBC on their bias and mistakes. Plenty of material there. They should showcase more international reporting but dump the celebrity hobnobbing. I have no interest seeing Burnett, Cooper, or Morgan suck up to the latest has been celebrity like desperate attention seekers. I still think CNN should learn a few lessons from NPR but my conservative friends might disagree. NPR may need to improve on its coverage of issues important to conservatives, but they have really good news coverage of global, national, and local news.