King scores for Jones interview…
Larry King Live nearly tripled its normal audience last night with the Star Jones interview. The show had 2,957,000 viewers with 917,000 in the 25-54 demo. That’s nearly double what Cooper got for the Jolie interview. No wonder CNN re-ran it today, though I wish they hadn’t.
Another ‘first’ FNC didn’t have. I bet Ailes hit the ceiling over this.
Comment by Cable News Watcher — June 30, 2006 @ 10:39 pm
Where exactly would they run a Star Jones interview? I can’t think of a program where it would fit. Maybe O’Reilly but I doubt that. When Cosby was around, yeah I could see it being on that show. But they don’t really have one that fits that format now.
Comment by Spud — July 1, 2006 @ 12:39 am
I think we need to accept that we news junkies aren’t the typical news consumer. And there are simply not enough of us to support an entire news organization these days. So if they have to pander to the herd to pay the rent so they can do the other stuff, well, it’s the price we have to pay to see real news sandwiched in between the chaff.
Comment by Arthur — July 1, 2006 @ 12:39 am
I think that’s a copout. There are news viewers there. Lots of them. But this is typical water cooler tittle tattle. I’ll bet half the viewers King got never even watch The View. They just tuned in because it was “an event”.
Comment by Spud — July 1, 2006 @ 12:41 am
There are news viewers and then there are news junkies. It’s like ‘fans’ of a cult show (say, Buffy or Star Trek) - they think they represent the universe of viewers, but they don’t. They’re a FRACTION of the actual viewers and if the show runners did something to turn off more non-fan viewers just to appease fan viewers… well, it’s just something they’re not going to do.
Comment by Arthur — July 1, 2006 @ 12:51 am
Well, I guess this is why Larry King exists. His program was the perfect format for the Star Jones debacle, and FNC really doesn’t have an hour long format where such discussion would occur, as Spud mentioned. I even watched part of it, even thought I have NEVER watched The View, bec. I wanted to see what the big deal was.
Comment by Missy — July 1, 2006 @ 12:53 am
I tried to watch this, but just can’t stomach the whole thing. I guess I fall into the category of news junkie.
However, if I have to make a concession and confession to what I thought was really hot, it was seeing the photo of Tony Snow in his Elvis sunglasses on Air Force One.
Comment by cella — July 1, 2006 @ 11:32 am
Bill O’Reilly bled a Howard Stern interview for 2 days.
Greta has given hours to the Holloways.Come on guys,FNC
would do the interview if they could.I don’t think there
is any doubt CNN does more news in 24 hours hands down.
I bet Ted called Klein and King to give them props.It’s
summer and news is slow.If they can get people to tune in
who do not watch the news, is it not possible that when there is a big breaking news story CNN would be their choice.Quit crying and admit FNC got beat.Somehow the
Graceland tour did not cut it as breaking news to me.
I have no problem with the mixture of news and pop culture.
Does anyone really think is there was actually real breaking
news that CNN would not have dumped of the King replay.If
CNN gets 17-54 year olds watching, I have no problem with
that because we do care about the news.Just not the cirucs
of fake debate and endless talking heads somehow parading
as news these days.I find it odd that there were no questions about O’Reilly and Stern or Greta and the Joran
kid(lots of news there).Not!
Comment by future tv mogul — July 1, 2006 @ 6:36 pm
FOX NEWS ALERT….Hank Williams Jr, on FNC tonight….oh me, could he be a celebrity?….wonder what ‘news item’ he’s the focus of???
Comment by Cable News Watcher — July 1, 2006 @ 7:17 pm
CNN and FNC tie as far as more news/better news in my book.
Who was on the Isreal/Gaza story this past week? I think Jennifer Griffin cut her stateside vacation short. But Fox had people there ready to go. Shep Smith stayed late and cut into O’Reilly; Mike Tobin had a special report in the 1st five minutes of Hannity & Colmes; and the story was updated all night. Fox was way ahead on this story. Early on Mike Tobin had a twinkle in his eye when he said, “I can’t confirm that any Israeli troops have started to move yet.”
Now as far as CNN: Thank goodness for Wolf Blitzer and Late Edition every Sunday morning; or we all would forget the other war we waging in the MIddle East. Wolf regularly scores interviews with the leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is news there, but not front page headlines. And when the headlines come soon, most of us will be wondering when all these developments happened and why we weren’t listening.
I predict that a year from now Iraq will be the furthest thing on our minds as we are all up in arms about our increasing casualties in Afghanistan, the twists and turns going on in Isreal, and the looming threat in Iran.
Comment by erljr — July 1, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
“FOX NEWS ALERT….Hank Williams Jr, on FNC tonight…..oh me, could he be a celebrity?…..wonder what ‘news item’ he’s the focus of???”
Yeah, but Bo-SEEE-fus is a good ol’ boy Flag-Waving Bush-Loving Patriot. So that makes it okay.
Comment by Arthur — July 1, 2006 @ 11:43 pm
I agree; Hank Williams is no Fox News Alert. My point is that if you want hard news that is important to you, you have to know where to look. Pakistan and Afghanistan aren’t on the front page of the newspaper either; but the GOOD papers have it somewhere in the middle.
Note that newspaper machines only show the top half of the first page. So FNC has Hank Williams; and CNN has Angelina and Star. That’s not a draw for us news junkies, but it draws in others to keep the numbers up and the bills paid. That keeps them on the air so we people who care about Israel and Afghanistan can find where to look for it and thus be informed.
Comment by erljr — July 2, 2006 @ 4:19 pm