‘Talent Search’ at MSNBC

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Two afternoon shows on MSNBC — Joy Reid at 1 p.m. ET and Ronan Farrow at 2 p.m. — were cancelled yesterday, and it looks like Chris Hayes will be the network’s next “star” to get the ax:

In the relatively near term, two well-placed sources predicted to The Daily Beast, Chris Hayes will be relieved of his weak-performing 8 p.m. show All In, to be replaced by the current 9 p.m. host of The Rachel Maddow Show, while a talent search is underway to fill the prime-time slot to be vacated by Maddow.

That phrase “talent search” stuck out, like MSNBC president Phil Griffin is running a cable-news American Idol, with would-be anchors auditioning for their place in the lineup. In other words, Griffin seems to have the idea that on-air “talent” is the basic problem at his network, rather than the deliberate narrowness of its niche marketing strategy. If you’re a politics junkie who wants to see 24/7 TV coverage produced from the left-wing perspective of Daily Kos/Mother Jones/Talking Points Memo, then MSNBC is your network, regardless of the talking-head “talent” in front of the cameras. Unfortunately for Phil Griffin, that audience seems to max out at less than 800,000 (Rachel Maddow’s audience Wednesday was 774,000) and most of those viewers only watch a couple hours of programming daily.

No “talent search” can ever overcome that basic problem. Maybe you could bring back Keith Olbermann, but that’s it.

 

77 comments

  2. I think the white courtesy phone is being held for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. It’s her time, baby.

    Just follow the “Tootsie” rule and avoid closeups.

  3. It’s amazing how the big three networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) cling to their support of the Dems and the left generally, while their ratings crater, preferring ideology over all else. Corporate profits and returning value to their shareholders means very little. NBC and MSNBC are the worst.

  16. The lovely Miss Maddow’s audience was 774,000? And she’s their prime prime-time player?

    Well, let me help with MSNBC’s programming here: Days of our Lives averaged 2,511,000 per day last week, and is shown on NBC at the same time as the televisionly deceased Joy Reid. Since NBC already owns Days, they could show it on MSNBC for zero cost!

    And Days would fit right in with MSNBC’s philosophy: the show has been losing in the ratings, and I’d guess it is because the soap is featuring prominently a queer male homosexual “married” couple, with a third queer homosexual horning in (pun most definitely intended) on both of them. (My darling bride TiVos the show every day, but she’s getting tired of it, too.)

    With the soap opera audience supposedly being primarily married women between 18 and 49, spending a lot of time on story lines about queers male homosexuals wouldn’t seem like something which would grab the audience’s attention. (A lesbian story line might, but I don’t know if they ever tried that.)

  19. With Alan Grayson as her political commentator, that show can’t lose.

    The show could be called, “I See Nothing, Nothing”. (See what I did there?)

  21. And the real trouble with that is that the Democrats are losing the white working class as well as the white middle class, and that’s where the networks need to find their audiences.

  22. On that topic, a niche soap opera along the lines of Dark Shadows, and featuring only freaks (such as the ones from the other day) with some corrupt judges thrown in for laughs, could be a winner for them.

  23. I actually think you’re onto something there. They could throw her 30 thou a year, and call the show “XXOO!”

  24. They should give me a show on that network, in which I mock the rest of their lineup. It’d be their highest rated show (because even if only my reatives watched, I’d still have more viewers), and I’d even do it for free, just for the laughs.

  26. That might be worth watching. Buy plenty of popcorn, but be prepared to laugh so hard it will impossible to eat it.

  30. “Days…” got 2.5 million viewers, and don’t forget: soaps are on hard times! That’s actually considered “dangerously low audience” in the industry.

    A friend of mine was on a TV series that got cancelled because it “only” had 2 million viewers. (I laughed, because I once did a play for an audience of 3 people!)

  33. I believe you’re on to something. When ratings are discussed the ”demos” reference age groups primarily. In short, do Blacks and Hispanics watch MSNBC or cable news at all?

  39. For MSNBC survive there needs to be a presidential campaign every two years. The lack of a Democratic primary is going to be devastating for them.

  42. To quote Dr, Archie Campbell in response to being told something hurt when you did something – “Then Don’t do that!”

  43. The problem with leftist media is their mindset. They may be more compelling entertainers because of their in-the-moment passion (often a problem for conservatives in the same situation), but they lack intellectual rigor and consistency.
    Leftists do not persuade, they cajole and mock.
    They are creatures of emotion.
    A conservative can build an intellectual case over many installments, and show how previous topics relate to the current topic.
    Leftists engage in two minutes of hate.
    And after you’ve seen a couple of installments, you’ve seen them all.

  44. They’re lining up the next batch of angry liberals to prep for the elections. My money says the flavor of the month will be self righteous feminist.

  45. Instead of talking about Hillary, they’ll spend their time mocking the Republicans. This will get old pretty fast.

  46. I’ve often marveled at that. I suspect they make up the losses with rampant cronyism.
    The second-greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was making taxpayers subsidize their society’s decay.

  47. Here comes the inevitable Dunning-Kruger Effect: Liberals have no idea what a moderate position is, so how are they going to promote one?

  48. That’s been their bread and butter whether in an election cycle or not and it’s failing. I don’t think only a Republican primary is enough to make a difference. This is also a big problem for the Democratic party in general. Primaries get the whole base of a party involved and enthusiastic. All of the professional class is scrambling to get paying gigs while they’re available but what are the grunts supposed to do.

  50. Nick would be a good one, but he would never stoop so low as to work for MSN”BS”.

    Even in high school, he was pretty conservative, but funny as hell at times.

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