MSNBC and Obama Tanking Together

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Two headlines:

MSNBC is in serious trouble
— Politico

Poll: Obama’s disapproval
rating hits a new high
— Washington Post

Hating Republicans is a poor substitute for sound policy, and it’s also not an adequate rationale for a news organization:

In a world where liberals wanted to be outraged by George Bush every night, or celebrate the rise of Barack Obama, MSNBC had a theory of the case. But now Obama’s presidency has turned into a slog, and MSNBC isn’t compelling. Prime time is just hours of what often seems like feigned outrage. And the daytime strategy — giving shows to kids in their 20s and 30s, in an apparent bid to reach the youths — is comically bad, and rendered absurd at every commercial break when the catheter ads come on.

Everybody’s chortling at MSNBC’s misfortune — Instapundit jokes that both of MSNBC’s viewers will “age out of the demographic next year” — but it’s important that conservatives not miss the real lesson here. Fox News has succeeded by offering an alternative to biased liberal news coverage, but despite being No. 1 in cable news, the market demand seems to have peaked:

In 2013, the cable news audience, by nearly all measures, declined. The combined median prime-time viewership of the three major news channels — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — dropped 11% to about 3 million, the smallest it has been since 2007. The Nielsen Media Research data show that the biggest decline came at MSNBC, which lost nearly a quarter (24%) of its prime-time audience. CNN, under new management, ended its fourth year in third place, with a 13% decline in prime time. Fox, while down 6%, still drew more viewers (1.75 million) than its two competitors combined (619,500 at MSNBC and 543,000 at CNN).

By comparison, despite declining ratings, the three major broadcast evening news programs still reach much larger audiences: NBC Nightly News 8.4 million, ABC World News 7.7 million and CBS Evening News 6.5 million — a combined average nightly viewership of more than 22 million in 2013, about seven times larger than the 3 million total reached by the cable news networks.

That is to say, while Alternative Media have risen and Establishment Media have declined, Establishment Media still matters, and will continue to matter for the foreseeable future. MSNBC made a bet during the Bush years that there was a market for a cable network that was the antithesis of Fox News, and that bet helped MSNBC vault past CNN into second place among cable networks, but the momentum — which took MSNBC from about 350,000 primetime viewers in 2006 to about 750,000 in 2012 — couldn’t be sustained.

Conservatives who watch Fox News to get pro-GOP happy talk are much more numerous than people who tune into MSNBC to get anti-GOP angry talk, but that is cold comfort to Republicans when the Democrat in the White House was able to get re-elected in large measure because MSNBC actually reflects the private opinions of the people who produce mass-market news at the major networks.

 

34 comments

  4. And they will aaaaall go doooown togetherrrrrr!

    (No Belle Knocks jokes, please. This is a classy joint.)

  9. The ideology of liberalism is an ideology of nonsense.

    As such, it simply runs out of content in a hyper-information society after regurgitating the same gibberish over and over in ever-cruder forms.

    Keep the pressure on.

  12. It should be noted that all the cable news networks experience a drop in viewership the year after a Presidential election. It happens as regularly as clockwork.

    Also, while the raw numbers do show the networks still dominant in evening newscast ratings overall, their demographics skew to the older and whiter audience, which is now the least trustful of TV news.

    It wasn’t television that elected Obama, although all media’s concerted efforts to cover up any negative stories about him or his administration certainly contributed. He was elected the first time by historically large turnouts among minorities and young people and huge margins among both. He was elected the second time by a somewhat reduced but similar effect made possible only by the failure of millions of white voters to show up. Had whites merely turned out in the same numbers as 2004, Obama would have lost.

  14. Does anyone have a breakdown on those viewers that will tell what percentage of them have cable?

    Seems to me you have to filter out the folks who don’t have the option of cable channels in order to make rational comparisons for what does and doesn’t attract viewers.

  15. I didn’t even know they made a handy pocket catheter with polished holes so they’re less painful. I’m taking notes for when the inevitable day comes.

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