Abrams on primetime changes
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Gail Shister has MSNBC GM Dan Abrams spinning last week’s primetime re-shuffle…
For a rookie, MSNBC’s Dan Abrams throws major-league spin.
In his first move as general manager, Abrams last week canceled Rita Cosby’s 10 p.m. talk show and bumped Tucker Carlson from 11 p.m. to 4 p.m., with an updated repeat at 6. The changes begin next Monday.
Instead of five hours’ live face time a week, Cosby will appear several times weekly as primary anchor of the taped documentary series MSNBC Investigates, at 10 and 11 weeknights. She’ll also head a four-person unit to produce Rita Cosby Specials.
Here’s the spin: Cosby isn’t losing a show, she’s gaining a more important gig.
“This would be the ultimate offer for most TV correspondents,” says Abrams, 40, formerly anchor of the legal-oriented Abrams Report at 4 and 6 p.m.
Things seem to actually be getting worse since Dan Abrams took over!
I’ve been watching Fox so far this morning, and they’ve been bombarding us with Fox News Alerts. And these are actually important:
N. Korea will start a nuclear war if we go after their missile
30 dead in Valencia, Spain train accident
5″ crack in some part of the space shuttle (sorry I’m not more specific here)
Hamas/Israel conflict escalating big time!
Corzine shuts down NJ government (financial problems)
So when FNC went to a commercial, I switched to MSNBC to pick up on some of this breaking news. But guess what - they were showing a THREE DAY OLD rerun of Countdown!!!! No, I’m not making this up!!!
I used to love Dan Abrams and his Abrams Report, but what is wrong with this guy? Showing reruns of yesterday’s news is bad enough, but when “yesterday” is actually three days ago (due to the weekend), and when breaking news is actually occuring, couldn’t they drag someone in from off the street and actually do some live reporting?
And think of all the people home from work today who normally may not be watching cable. What kind of impression will this leave on them - would they honestly ever think to turn to MSNBC for breaking news if this is what they see today?
Dan better get his act together. He’s actually making things worse, in my opinion!
Comment by Missy — July 3, 2006 @ 9:56 am
To be fair, the decision to run Countdown repeats during the day was something decided before Abrams took over.
Comment by Mr A — July 3, 2006 @ 10:00 am
I think this is a horrendous decision. Maybe it would be all right on a very slow news day, but with all that’s happening now, they should have IMMEDIATELY scrapped Countdown and went to live reporting. BTW, CNN was also on top of these stories, from the little that I saw of them today.
Comment by Missy — July 3, 2006 @ 10:15 am
Yes, it is total spin! I am disappointed that Dan could not or would not be more straight forward with us regarding Rita Cosby.
But I liked the part of the article that told us what Tucker was up to.
Comment by cella — July 3, 2006 @ 10:21 am
I’m glad Shister framed the article as pure spin by Abrams and MSNBC. This is an embarrassment for the network akin to waving a white flag, and everyone with any sense knows it.
Comment by Jack — July 3, 2006 @ 10:49 am
I apologize for posting on this thread w/o reading the story that was posted, but I just wanted to comment on this morning’s actions by MSNBC.
But after reading the story, it certainly is spin by Abrams! If he thinks these cable talk shows are so horrible, he may as well just hang it up and turn MSNBC into taped programming, or documentaries, 24/7. They could be like A & E. But don’t try to spin MSNBC as a “news channel”.
Comment by Missy — July 3, 2006 @ 11:27 am
“N. Korea will start a nuclear war if we go after their missile”
— Not news, anyone who has a brain knows this and doesn’t need FOX scaring people into thinking it.
“30 dead in Valencia, Spain train accident”
— This is news.
“5″crack in some part of the space shuttle (sorry I’m not more specific here)”
— This is news.
“Hamas/Israel conflict escalating big time!”
— Been going on for over a week, the Palastinians issue ultimatum… hardly a huge escalation and just more hype about stuff that’s been going on for years.
“Corzine shuts down NJ government (financial problems)”
–Services started shutting down on Saturday evening… certainly not “breaking news”.
Comment by Nobody — July 3, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
Dear Nobody (aka MSNBC management, or Dan, Keith or tanne),
As you note, three of the stories were already in existence. But further developments occured with each today, thereby warranting “breaking news” status.
So if for some reason you wanted to ignore those developments, wouldn’t it make sense to at least cover the Shuttle and the Valencia stories as they broke? Can anyone POSSIBLY justify showing reruns of Friday news instead of reporting on any of the aforementioned?
It’s just very sad to see what has happened to MSNBC. They billed themselves as “America’s News Channel”, or something like that, at one point, but they are straying far from that mission now. Too bad; they may as well just run all taped programming all the time if that’s what they are headed towards.
Comment by Missy — July 3, 2006 @ 2:41 pm
Dear Missy,
I am not MSNBC management, nor am I Dan or Keith.
I don’t know what MSNBC was running very early in the day. I only tuned in around 9 am and they were running the 2005 Countdown Oddball special again. At 10, when it was over, they went to live news coverage.
I’m not sure why they were running that at 9 either.
If I were going to talk about Dan Abrams’ “spin,” I’d talk about it in reference to Rita Cosby (who is really getting the old “We want to push you out the door but we’re pretending instead that we just gave you are MORE IMPORTANT JOB with a whole lot less to do” treatment) and his assertion that MSNBC isn’t going to become a “crime channel,” yet what is the programming plan for tomorrow? An entire DAY of taped crime/prison programs. (”Crime never takes a holiday!”) I’m really wondering whether he meant what he said, or whether these taped programs are going to be just another version of Rita’s usual sob-sister journalism, this time devoted to nothing but CRIME! CRIME! CRIME!
Comment by tanne — July 3, 2006 @ 7:21 pm
I just saw Tucker in his new time slot! Awesome!
Five, central time.
Comment by cella — July 3, 2006 @ 7:57 pm
Missy: To be fair, MSNBC has frequently pre-empted the Olbermann morning rerun for breaking news.
Perhaps what is left of the MSNBC A-Team is taking a long Holiday weekend.
Comment by Ira — July 3, 2006 @ 8:02 pm