Now I like to stream my shows. I have not like Ed Lately, or O'donnell. I'm not a hillary lover but fuck the email fucking scandal.

It's back on Selma on manbc, now.

Now watch only Rachel.

Jesus…how insensitive.

Spare me.

I hope Rachel et al. can survive the coming purge.

While I realize my innertubes excerpts are also carefully tailored by media-meisters, I have the ability to channel surf much quicker than I could back in the days.

We bought a big 40" teevee about 5 years ago thinking that it would be a nice family activity (really the two of us with a few kids bopping on by).

Nobody wants to sit on a couch and stuff popcorn and network shit in our mouths anymore. Advertising and stupid programming has killed it. Give us a good book, everytime.

on occasion i visit my ex and her husband who always have it on. two weeks ago they were watching some guy picking gingseng roots, not noticing that he's rummaging through the woods with a rifle.

i had to ask, why is he carrying the gun if all he's doing is digging roots? well, shame on me for asking! i was told it was reality tv. wow! some f*ing reality. for how many people has the risk of being shot for walking through the woods become reality? is it my belief system that is so far out of touch?

you can keep the whole damned system and everything it is doing to us.

those big banners running across the screen. Right over the front line of walkers! They must have an idiot directing this.

Well, MSNBC is broke. Going left was once a good idea, particularly in 2008 and 2012, when the election and re-election of Barack Obama did wonders for a network trying to be the anti-Fox. But as we’ve seen the last two years, nobody is buying what the “Lean Forward” network is selling anymore, regardless of who’s doing the selling. Even flagship programs like Hardball and the Rachel Maddow Show aren’t remotely competitive anymore with Fox or even CNN.

On many days and nights lately, MSNBC is even losing to HLN showing repeats of Forensic Files at a fraction of the cost (Maddow makes $7 million/year, while Matthews pulls in a reported $5M/year). No word on what the guy who throws in the tape and shuts the lights off makes over at HLN.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-axing-farrow-reid-doesnt-solve-anything-only-replacing-phil-griffin-does/

...because they air that stupid Lockup shit.

Is Comcast just trying to remake them?

I have a friend who works in ads sales for cable news. The overhead for FOX and MSNBC is huge as they have so many live talent. Each show requires talent, writers, producers, etc. The overhead is quite high. MSNBC has subsidized the overhead with the non-news weekend programming like Lock Up. Yes it is stupid programming, but it gets decent cable ratings and drives revenue.

They seem to be trying to grow audience by reducing the more left shows. (Appeal to more moderates.) The problem is that probably won't work. I think the whole cable news business model is in trouble mainly due to the niche audiences like Fox and MSNBC. The overhead is huge and the audiences are shrinking.

And while I find it amazing that anyone would watch Lock-Up, they must be getting enough viewership to pay the bills.

I think that part of the problem is that the Fox demographic is accustomed to watching television for their news and respect a news-looking format. The younger generation, which skews left, gets its news online, from blogs and social media. They are not an evening-news-watching demographic. MSNBC is using a format that fits a Fox demographic, and that may be the mismatch.

MSNBC might have done better if they could have monetized their own internet site--separate from NBC news--with its own social media and interactive events. Perhaps part of the problem is that the beancounters still haven't figured out how to do net ratings well, and are still counting Nielson boxes (or the equivalent).

Another thing MSNBC needs is smart hosts with charisma. Other than Rachel Maddow, there haven't been anchors with both. Maddow looks like a broadcaster. Chris Hayes looks like the guy down the hall in your dorm who wants you to come to a Greenpeace rally. Al Sharpton is too busy fighting with the teleprompter to be effective in any way; Ed Schultz always seemed to be more of a Fox guy underneath. Even Melissa Harris Perry, with her PhD, comes across as an annoying professor who gets on her soapbox, talking at a fever pitch and a little too fast.

Better hosts might have made the difference. Perhaps Goldie Taylor, who had the gravitas that comes from military service and a really good voice for TV and radio. SE Cupp could have held her own and would have had a slightly different take. And Keith Olbermann was really good at what he did and I think it was a mistake for MSNBC to have let him go.

Of course, that's all hindsight. But I really think a lot of it is about how young people consume news--a cable station may not be the best medium. Air America found out that radio was passe for this generation too.

A few things I learned doing audience media research for 10 years...

1. Overall the younger audience does not like "NEWS" audio programs. That includes news talk radio, cable news stations, etc. They simply are not as interested in those formats at a younger age. So getting younger liberals to watch MSNBC is nearly impossible regardless of the host. Do some shows work? Of course. But look what is working...The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (RIP). Comedy based news and satire. But getting the youth to watch news talking heads isn't ever going to work.

2. I do think that the message from liberals is much less exciting overall than the right. The right likes to scare the shit out of people over and over and over again. Liberals, by nature, are not like that. Whipping liberals into a frenzy on cable news isn't something that works.

3. I agree 100% that many liberals get their content from other sources like books, newspapers, internet, etc. The right certainly gets it from right wing Talk Radio and Fox.

Air America mainly failed for two reasons. A. They were on some of the crappiest AM radio stations known to the broadcast bandwidth. AM radio is dying, younger people do not know it exists, and many had signals that didn't even cover the metro areas. Couple that with a number of really boring hosts that simply gave mostly boring talk radio.

Your first point does not bode well for the nation. While comedy based news and satire is fun, it is typically derivative, and topics are chosen based on their comedic value, not necessarily their news value. Don't get me wrong: some complex thinking comes out in well-done satire, but other news that may be crucial may be too dry to make comedic, and, let's face it: a comedy show does not have a "public trust" to cover important news. Stewart and Colbert have done their best over the years to bring complex national issues into a comedic format: Colbert's continuing saga of his Super Pac, including his real life attorney, made the very dull subject of campaign finance (and Citizen's United) into brilliant satire. I thought that was extraordinarily well done and the Peabody for that work well deserved. However, that is more the exception than the rule.

I am interested in how John Oliver's new show is working out. They actually do research and some original journalism themselves--the Miss America pageant scholarship money was a case in point. However, their topics are more general in conception and not always linked to the news of the day. And here again, they are not required to be a real news program with a public trust.

The trick would be to have an actual newscast with an edgy comedic voice, which would erase the already blurred line between journalism and entertainment. That's why suggesting Jon Stewart to host the NBC Nightly News is not so far fetched. However, this is the wrong timing: NBC would lose its current denture-wearing Viagra-popping audience and Stewart's younger core audience may not yet be ready to hunker down and commit to a nightly newscast, even with their favorite host.

In regard to MSNBC, they tried to serve a very narrow demographic: progressive urban (mostly white) college grads. This is the Rachel Maddow demographic: they've been to college, they respond well to an interesting professor explaining an issue, and they like those cool little nerd glasses. They're also a very small demographic, even among young people.

MSNBC had no place for the young religious folk (there are many), no place for the ideas of the young in "flyover country", and, in many ways, no real credible voice for minorities. Al Sharpton was and is a joke and his presence on MSNBC is completely inexplicable without there having been a deal somewhere. Joy Reid, Melissa Harris-Perry and Toure represent a small slice of the black upper middle class, whose own internal ambivalence makes them more inclined to a show of politically correct zealotry than to a real dissection of the issues facing their less fortunate brothers and sisters. They are black hosts for young white liberals who've taken Black Studies courses.

The one person I thought had real credibility was Goldie Taylor; she had not grown up with the same privilege as her black counterparts at MSNBC and was a veteran. There were a few times when she was called in to discuss issues and she had a much more realistic perspective. I always thought the network missed an opportunity by not giving her a show. She also has a great voice for television.

When you look at other ethnic minorities--Latinos and Asians, for example--there was simply nothing there.

I think the biggest problem though was that MSNBC misread Fox and how it got its success. On one hand, Fox is unrepentantly ideological. On the big issues, they speak with one voice. However, the programmers at Fox realized they needed conflict to really make a program sell. (There was a reason that CNN's original Crossfire was so successful--it made the blood boil.) So what they did is pull in liberal foils: Alan Coombs and Juan Williams come to mind. They also have some surface variety in their conservative voices--many actually seem more libertarian--and these hosts do not all cover the exact same content in the same way. Don't get me wrong: Fox is straight down the line conservative ideology with an unrelenting support of "free" markets and Israel. But they managed to find ways to create conflict and interest.


MSNBC didn't really have enough conflict. Morning Joe was the one show I can think of where the hosts did actively disagree at times, and Scarborough was enough of a jerky irritating guy to get the blood boiling--very good for a show. Mika was misplaced there--and if her Daddy weren't a pillar of US foreign policy and the CFR, she wouldn't be there. Somebody with more fight could have made that show really pop.

Another "dissenting" voice was SE Cupp, but she was part of a large group show. When she appeared on Bill Maher, she was better able to show her true skills in a slightly more rough and tumble format.

However, MSNBC pretty much stuck to the typical liberal shibboleths, and sacred cows were never challenged. It makes for boring television.

Imagine if MSNBC had had a black affairs show with Cornell West and (conservative) Jason Riley. The former is lobbying the government to do more for the black poor; the latter has written a book telling liberals to "stop helping us" and let blacks find their own way without government help. (Riley's research is compelling, whether or not you agree with him). Yes, sparks would fly. And it could make interesting television.

Imagine a women's affairs program where conservative women were routinely invited on--if only as foils. Let's say you pit the president of NOW or the Fund for the Feminist Majority against a the president of the Concerned Women for America. Blood boiling.

However--and here is the big difference between liberals and conservatives--young liberals do not want to hear anything outside their world view, not even for a minute. The Maddow demographic has graduated from college in the past decade or so when speech codes have been the norm, when professors have been overwhelmingly liberal or left, and where an opposite perspective can be easily labeled "hate speech" and dismissed. In fact, even having an opposite perspective--such as being against gay marriage or even mentioning black on black crime--is considered to be "creating an unsafe environment." All of this, of course, stifles debate. And debate is what sells programs on cable news these days.

So here's the problem for MSNBC: to make a program truly interesting, you need conflict. However, your very narrow demographic has been conditioned by their university experience to adopt articles of political faith without debate. Therefore, TV geared toward them operates in an even more narrow ideological universe than TV for the older generation (Fox). Older people who went to college attended in an era (50s, 60s, 70s) where ideas were being challenged and free speech on campus was being espoused as a core value. Non college grads--most people in this age group--actually do more political arguing with people who don't agree with them. (FIRE's Greg Lukianoff quotes this statistic in almost every speech he does.) The Fox audience may have their beliefs, but they're willing to hear your "moonbattery" and fight you on it. The MSNBC demographic, on the other hand, has a hard time hearing your "teabagger" beliefs; they tend to get more emotionally offended and will fight your right to even say your piece. How do you program interesting television for that group?

The only thing that I could think of that might work is "news as therapy." I have some ideas on how that could actually work, but it would be a dangerous thing for society.

Can I encourage you to make this an original post?

That's a thought, though.

I posted this video:

Apparently, just the characterization of the video by the complainer was enough. If someone in the tribe says "this comes from a bad website" everyone marches in lockstep. The website is FIRE and they are doing more to help the First Amendment on college campuses than anyone I know. Apparently, many DUers are against the First Amendment.

Righties never change their minds. MSNBC could air a solid slate of Rush, Hannity, Savage-wiener, etc., and they would still be referred to as "that liburl channel"

And when they go down and have to change to an informercial channel to pay the bills, the righties will say "Look! that proves no one wants to watch a liburl channel"

even though their weekly news program hosts never refrain nor withhold snotty, snide, and bigoted commentary about democratic leaders, most particularly, president obama - the right continues to define npr as liberal.

It was wall-to-wall coverage of his supposed scandals. I think only two people didn't spend much time on it: O'Donnell and Sharpton. But that's when they lost me.

I believe they are also faking poll results. Like the "boots on the ground" poll.

I know the American people have been bombarded with propaganda but surely they have not suddenly become pro perpetual war.

isn't that enough. so say the boss's upstairs.

he is the only one i trust. i watched o'donnell the other night to hear the panel on hillary's email. but his meltdown over hillary when he screamed at jennifer granholm - made me realize he was no longer someone i looked to for "reason".

MSNBSFOXNEWS. or FOXNEWSMSNBC or even better:

FOXMSNBCNEWS

I have not watched this channel since they got rid of Keith O. This channel absolutely sucks, keeping the horrendous Joe Scarbough, and his yes man side kick Mika....Maddow needs to go out on her own....maybe to Meet the press...perfect for that job.....

do you guys realize that msnbc has now made it impossible to watch any of the prime time news shows online unless you also own a tv, have cable, and pay extra for msnbc!

yup, serious as a heart attack. go check it out. the only ONLY up side is they have a right margin list of comments, and they are BRUTAL!! i found one on there with a link to a petition on change.org. signed it, and got an email back "'splaining" themselves. here is that content.

is the biggest joke. It replaces O'Donnell every Friday and through the weekend. I have a problem finding respectable news on weekends, between Lockup and Caught on Camera. MSNBC does not have the creative people capable of providing adequate programming.

I had one of my 'talking to the TV' moments and said, "Hope you are making lots of money on the ads because you are losing ratings with this move." I was not happy.

MSNBC has a recap special this afternoon and I doubt I will be able to see it. I suppose 'they' think the recap will make up for something. I can understand that if the country is moving more to the right that a channel will move to the right, not stand for truth and facts and stuff, but cutting off the bridge walk for Caught on Camera is pure nuttiness. OK End of rant!

Except for this: We got only the John Lewis and Obama speeches. There was a lot more going on but all we got were talking heads talking to each other and over and over asking "what do you want to hear from the president today?" I wanted to hear all the other action!