Rick Kaplan radio interview mentions “rebranding”…
The MSN MSNBC board came across a radio interview Rick Kaplan did Thursday on Boston’s WBUR-FM with Tom Ashbrook. This is news because Kaplan mentions a “rebranding” coming soon to MSNBC…
During the 40-minute interview, Kaplan spent much of his time defending the cable news universe, saying there is room for a diverse group of opinions on his and other cable channels, while reminding the host, Tom Ashbrook, MSNBC still devotes many hours a day to simply reporting the news.
Ashbrook and many of the callers used FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly as the poster boy of what a cable news host shouldn’t be like, and there were times, surprisingly, where Kaplan defended O’Reilly, saying he fills an important niche that might have been otherwise ignored.
What might be of most interest to this group were some of the comments Kaplan made toward the end of the broadcast. After being questioned why so much of MSNBC’s time is devoted to less than hard-hitting topics, Kaplan said he thinks viewers will notice a renewed focus on traditional reporting during a “rebranding” that will take place in the near future.
I haven’t had time to listen to the whole podcast. But I did catch the rebranding part which sounds to me like Kaplan is referring, indirectly at least in part, to the new half hour specials during MSNBC Live and Monday’s launch of The Most. Rough transcript by me follows…
One of the things that we can do and what we are trying to do and that I think you’ll see a lot of growth in in the coming weeks as we rebrand our network at MSNBC is the challenge of trying to accomplish what Melanie (a caller who complained about too much opinion and pandering and not enough news - Spud.) was talking about and do it in a way so that you build your audience as well. I think there’s a lot of people - a lot of them listen to this program - a lot of them listen to this network - I think there’s a lot of people who are looking for a better…a better sense of real news and are a litte frustrated and a little put off by what we’ve all been doing too much of. And I’m hoping - the challenge is to do it in a way that tells stories in a fine fashion. It’s not that there… most people are objecting to international news. It’s that we tend to do international news in an incompetent way.
I think it can be done and I’d be willing to go down trying.
UPDATE: I got to listen to the whole broadcast. It’s worth the listen. So if you’ve got 40 minutes to kill and want to hear Kaplan talk about a variety of subjects (though the show concentrates heavily on what goes on during primetime) in an insightful manner (including commenting on Nightline and Ted Koppel) you won’t be disapointed.
Round and round they go, when they’ll STOP, nobody knows.
Comment by Mark — April 29, 2006 @ 2:02 pm
The only thing that needs to be truly rebranded is Kaplans job description, from employed to unemployed. The network has gone to crap under him.
Comment by Steve — April 29, 2006 @ 2:47 pm
I think since MSNBC split from Microsoft things will be changing. But, if Kaplan’s “able” to fix this network, that’s yet to be seen. If you use FNC as a template for successful ratings, the new 3pm show is a good idea. They (FNC) have live news or opinion shows from 3pm - 11pm. It’s easy to say, “just put hard news on all the time”. But, “hard news” alone doesn’t bring in the viewers unless they like the host or there’s some sort of major story.
Comment by Terance — April 29, 2006 @ 3:09 pm
“Ashbrook and many of the callers used FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly as the poster boy of what a cable news host shouldn’t be like, and there were times, surprisingly, where Kaplan defended O’Reilly, saying he fills an important niche that might have been otherwise ignored.”
Why would this “Tom Ashbrook” make such an idiotic statement, and who is he to define what a “cable news host shouldn’t be like”? Like him or not, O’Reilly’s the guy whose ratings far exceed those of any other cable news host, so he’s apparently EXACTLY what many people want in a cable news host.
And it was decent of Mr. Kaplan to not take a typical shot at O’Reilly. It’s apparently popular to do so, so it’s nice to see him buck the trend.
Comment by Missy — April 29, 2006 @ 3:46 pm
Ratings don’t neccessarily equate to being likable or being what people really want.
Comment by bravesfan — April 29, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
The network has gone to crap under him.
That’s not true or accurate. I know many people at MSNBC who say things were a lot worse under Kaplan’s predecessor. I think he’s in a tight spot because he can’t run the network with the freedom that Klein or Ailes can run their networks because NBC and NBC News won’t allow it for their own territorial/selfish reasons. I suspect that if NBC let up on the reigns and stopped treating MSNBC as competition to its own news division’s livelihood, we’d be seeing a different more resilient MSNBC.
Comment by Spud — April 29, 2006 @ 7:22 pm
You may lay blame NBC’s feet, but look at the decisions he has made.
Hiring Tucker Carlson without an idea for a show format so it takes them a few months to come up with one which mimics Around the Horn and the show still gets abysmal ratings forcing a timeslot change. They didn’t force him hire Rita Cosby and give her primetime stipulation limiting their schedule flexibility. Let’s not even mention Connected Coast to Coast or Weekends with Maury and Connie.
Was it NBC who instituted a musical chair rotation of Anchors for the better part of 18 months? Or kept below par newsreaders on when there are much better options doing updates?
I don’t mean to imply that all of MSNBC’s problems are of they’re own making, but there has been a multitude of opportunities the past few months that they could have used to differentiate themselves from Fox and CNN but they are consistently behind on nearly every front especially quality of content and it wasn’t like this a few years ago.
Comment by Steve — April 29, 2006 @ 8:47 pm
Spud: You didn’t mention that WBUR-FM is an NPR affiliate. So questions bashing O’Reilly are not exactly unexpected.
“Ratings don’t neccessarily equate to being likable or being what people really want.”
Bravesfan: Then what is?
Comment by Ira — April 29, 2006 @ 9:20 pm
I didn’t know it was an NPR affiliate (though I suspected because it sort of sounded like one). And Steve, I’m not saying Kaplan and others at MSNBC haven’t made bad programming decisions. But I am saying that they might not have had to make those decisions if NBC had given them more room to operate.
Comment by Spud — April 30, 2006 @ 1:32 am
To Ira-I’m not sure there really is a measure for it. A lot of people watched the crap that Jerry Springer put on but does that mean that people liked what they were seeing? I don’t think it does. Good television doesn’t always equal good ratings.
Comment by bravesfan — April 30, 2006 @ 8:58 am
So Ashbrook is on NPR? That explains everything. He can do whatever he wants, whether he has any listeners or not, because he’s government subsidized. He doesn’t have to worry about ratings; he can sit there and read a story to his cat if he wants and he’ll never get cancelled. He doesn’t have to worry about being entertaining or informative; he gets paid no matter what!
He’d probably last about 30 seconds in the private sector!
It would be great to have a job like that
Comment by Missy — April 30, 2006 @ 9:14 am
Just an FYI, NPR broadcasts some of the most popular programs on the radio including All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, Car Talk, “Wait, Wait”, This American Life, and Fresh Air.
Comment by BlogThat — April 30, 2006 @ 7:40 pm
I would ammend that to say that NPR broadcasts some of the most popular programs for Progressives….
Comment by Spud — April 30, 2006 @ 7:47 pm