FTVLive today comes out swinging on the Tucker Carlson switch…

MSNBC is trying to act like this was in the plans all along, of course anyone that has worked in TV News longer than 5 minutes knows that is total bull****. Carlson’s ratings have been awful. MSNBC spent millions promoting the show and the return has been awful.

ICN would agree in as much as the 9pm hour wasn’t going to work for Carlson. All one has to do is take a look at the ratings. The show premiered at 450,000 viewers and then sank like a rock the next night to the 150-200,000 level and has stayed there since. Usually there’s a gradual drop-off in viewers after a premiere, as was the case with Donahue. Such sudden swings are a bit unusual. In the case of The Situation people tuned in the first night, didn’t like what they saw apparently, and left never to return. So the switch is a no-confidence vote in the show at the 9 pm timeslot, but not necessarily a no-confidence vote in the format of the show itself because as far as anyone knows the format isn’t being tweaked. Yet.

There are two open questions that can’t be answered yet. One is whether the news of the switch will tar the show with the “damaged goods” label and keep people from tuning in at the later hour. So far the reaction in the press to the switch has been for the most part restrained. Six weeks after all is not a very long time in cable news terms. The second open question is will the late night audience be more interested in that format than the 9pm audience was? FTV had an insider say that MSNBC’s thinking is to low-ball expectations in as much as maintaining the same ratings level as the 9pm hour would be considered good enough. On that score ICN would disagree. In order to be a success the show would have to draw more viewers in to show that the move was a good idea. Maintaining the status quo in the ratings at 11pm (which is only 11 on the East Coast…it’s Primetime everywhere else), particularly if Cosby’s show boosts the 9pm ratings significantly from The Situation’s 9 pm levels, would for all intents and purposes show that the program in its current form can’t work.