MSNBC has changed up its dayside schedule. On the one hand this does create clear definitive lines between its news anchors and its non news anchors with the newsies being grouped together from 9-1pm ET. On the other hand the network has managed to drop yet another hour of news for Progressive POV analysis.
Look at this…
1 PM – Ronan Farrow
2 PM – Joy Reid
3 PM – The Cycle
4 PM – Alex Wagner
5 PM – Ed Schultz
6 PM – Al Sharpton
7 PM – Chris Matthews
8 PM – Chris Hayes
9 PM – Rachel Maddow
10 PM – Lawrence O’Donnell
Um…does anyone else notice the complete lack of originality in this lineup? It is almost universally monotone in structure. Excepting Schultz’s fire and brimstone, Matthews’ wonkiness, and the blank slate that Ronan Farrow still basically is, you could swap these hosts and their shows around without any significant flow disruption occurring from a content standpoint. Does anyone at 30 Rock see the absolute redundancy piled upon redundancy potential at work here?
I am having a very hard time squaring this lineup with Phil Griffin’s discussion about broadening his network’s coverage this year. This lineup isn’t built for that. It is built to double down on that big Progressive bet Griffin made a few years ago. It may lock in those progressives but I fear it will lock out everyone else looking for a bit more diversity of subject matter.
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