Showing posts with label Brian Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian Williams. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

American Media Madness - Cable & Network News Ratings

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Cable News



Fox News was rocked by an 8.0 mega quake the first week of June when the newest prime time host, Megyn Kelly, knocked the brash, cheeky and ever impertinent Bill O'Rielly off his prime time perch when she beat him in the key news demo, adults 25-54 for the week.  While O'Rielly remained #1 in total viewers with over 2.5 million Kelly was barely behind with over 2.4 million.


The two Fox powerhouses with Hannity at #3 and Greta Van Sustern helped Fox take 9 of the top 10 cable news shows for the week.  No hosted news show by MSNBC, CNBC or CNN made the top ten, just a special by CNBC, Shark Tank, and CNN's 1960s documentary.


CNN news continued it's troubles with the lowest key market ratings in 14 years. Second place MSNBC continued to be clobbered by Fox even as cable viewership continues to decline.  In virtually every time slot from Morning Joe to Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in prime time Fox leads with 3 to 5 times the MSNBC audience.    

Network News


At the network level NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams remained first with 8.1 million viewers while ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer averaged 7.3 million and CBS's Evening News with Scott Pelley pulled 6.0 million viewers.



Morning shows continued to be dominated by ABC's Good Morning America with 5.5 million viewers followed by NBC's Today at 4.77 million and CBS's This Morning at 2.9 million.
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Tuesday, November 02, 2010

NBC News Turns Back Clock to Huntley - Brinkley days of Election Coverage

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One of my biggest media complaints is how modern news reports condense all news into 30 second sound bites when the truth is most news stories deserve much more coverage.

Well tonight NBC News has turned back the clock to the good old days of broadcast journalism when people we trusted gave us the news, people like Huntley Brinkley on NBC.

Save Savannah

They are the only broadcast network going to prime time news coverage from 9-11 eastern with constant news coverage of the elections, and coverage will resume after the local news from 11:30 to 3:30 am.


Brian Williams and the news staff will finally give us the type of balanced news coverage we deserve and NBC should be cheered for restoring journalism values to network coverage.
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Wednesday, June 02, 2010

White House Takes MSNBC to Woodshed - NBC Now Sings a Different Tune

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Yesterday, after days of withering criticism from the liberal media led by the Morning Joe Show on MSNBC, the White House had the NBC gang over for a talk. Today MSNBC with NBC anchor Brian Williams as a guest on Morning Joe were singing the praises of Obama and his handling of all the major crises facing him.



Gone were the MSNBC reports on how the Obama Administration was responsible for issuing permits to BP for drilling and for approving all the change requests from BP. Yesterday this lack of oversight by a federal agency under an official appointed by Obama was a major story and the head of the agency had been forced out by Obama.



Now if the Interior Department failed to enforce the regulations or approved changes requested by BP that led to the environmental disaster then who is at fault, the oil company following the regulations or the regulators approving the permits and changes? Certainly both could be at fault.



However, the woodshed treatment by the White House has the entire NBC network singing a different song and telling a different story. Is this censoring the news? What exactly did the White House tell NBC that got them to change the story.

Ironically it was not just the oil mess that got the new kid gloves treatment by NBC. I mean why in the world did the news anchor of NBC News have to go on the Morning Joe show and demonstrate how easily the news media can be manipulated by the Obama gang?



Apparently the Obama boys could not put up with criticism from the left like MSNBC. Additional stories on the Morning Joe program about the Joe Sestak campaign promise of a job, the trouble in Israel, and the leadership, or lack thereof, by the president, all took a different slant after the scolding in the woodshed.



Anchors of two MSNBC opinion shows were also brought in to sing the praises of the president although Chris Matthews did not collapse and kiss the White House ring like Ed Schultz did. Of course hosts Mika Brezeinski and Joe Scarborough did a 180 degree turn and made all kinds of excuses for Obama when it came to his leadership.



Once upon a time Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania called MSNBC the Obama Television Network. He wasn't kidding. But as the country moved to the center the network seemed to have realized a far left liberal position was destroying their ratings and they moved to the center. Now, after the whupping in the woodshed, they seem to have returned to the president's back pocket.



Such a dramatic reversal by one of the major networks shows little backbone on the part of the network, and a bold and outrageous act by the White House to control the media. It also proves that there is really no fair and balanced coverage by the news media.

As for the new story line at MSNBC, BP is the criminal, they already tried and judged them. As for the Sestak story, MSNBC now says the Admiral is nuts in saying the White House made him an offer. As for the lack of Obama leadership, MSNBC now says he is misunderstood, that he has really been a tiger behind closed doors and that the public doesn't understand him.



It only took one trip to the woodshed to get NBC singing a different tune. Even so called conservative Joe Scarborough has been left exposed as just another presidential mouthpiece. Poor Joe has to work so hard to prove to his liberal colleagues that the Republicans hate him just as much as the Democrats that he has clearly lost his ideological compass.

MSNBC remains firmly planted in last place on the cable news shows and actions like today demonstrate why? The future stock value of GE who owns NBC for the moment and who benefits greatly from the actions of Obama and the Democrats in Congress must be more valuable to MSNBC than the truth.

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