MSNBC stays live long past schedule…
I don’t know if this has anything to do with what happened with the North Korea Missle Launch but MSNBC has stayed on the air way past its 4 pm ET traditional period of tape. Milissa Rehberger has been covering both the North Korean U.N. Security council resolution agreement story and the Middle East crisis. They even have live analyst Rick Francona still around.
Still live at 7pm eastern time.
Comment by BlogThat — July 15, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
And now MSNBC goes to sleep for 14 hours
CNN is on tape from 7pm-10pm.
Comment by IceMan — July 15, 2006 @ 7:02 pm
You’re not kidding. It’s back to the usual weekend lineup of serial killers, celebrities and prison specials that have been shown a billion times…
Comment by tanne — July 15, 2006 @ 8:00 pm
But those prison specials double and sometimes triple CNN and FOX News in the demo ratings. I am willing to bet that the numbers for the live news, that pre-empted the taped programming from 4 - 7 or 8p tonight will be lower than what they normally are. So if you were running a cable network, and it was in third place, and you had a series of programs that got great ratings, and would cost little to nothing to keep repeating since they keep bringing in great ratings… wouldn’t you do it? It all comes down to money. Ratings = Money. This crime stuff took off, like it or not, they would be stupid to drop this kind of programming because if they did, all the viewers would go with it. People who watch crime programming aren’t sticking around for news. And it’s a proven fact. Besides, you have two alternatives, CNN and FOX. MSNBC doesn’t have enough viewership anyway, so the people who can’t see the breaking news on MSNBC aren’t going to really be boosting CNN or FOX’s ratings above what they would normally get anyway.
Comment by Nobody — July 15, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
So - does this emphasis on crime programming mean that MSNBC is really competing against CourtTV at this point?
I guess with the emphasis of Nancy Grace and Greta on crime, that they could be considered competition as well.
Comment by Johnathan — July 16, 2006 @ 1:30 am
Well, Dan Abrams said quite some time ago that MSNBC was NOT going to become “the crime channel.” Yet I see absolutely no evidence of that being the case, as at least 90% of the weekend special and “Doc-Block” programming has to do with crime and prison life. Worst of all, most of it is repeats that have been shown a billion times. How many times can they show a given episode of “Lockup”?
“Nobody” points out that these shows get huge ratings compared to FNC and CNN. I would like to know who is watching them. Can there possibly be a soul who likes this kind of programming who hasn’t seen them all hundreds of times? Have they now entered the realm of “classic TV” where their fans watch them over and over like they’re “The Brady Bunch” or something? I just fail to get the appeal.
Comment by tanne — July 16, 2006 @ 8:50 am
A new LOCKUP will be on tomorrow at 10pm!
Comment by Terance — July 16, 2006 @ 9:18 am
MSNBC probably has three entirely different audiences:
–those of us who watch cable news
–those Court TV/Discovery Channel/A&E crime documentary fans, who will tune in for the crime programs
–the Entertainment Tonight/Celebrity fans, who will watch Headliners and Legends.
I doubt whether MSNBC has many viewers that carry over from one genre to the other. I will on occasion (maybe once a month) watch a crime documentary, but would never venture into the realm of celebrity news.
Comment by Missy — July 16, 2006 @ 10:52 am
I meant to emphasize that I think the three types of coverage MSNBC offers typically appeal to entirely different groups of people. A cable news junkie probably would be bored to death watching tabloid stories, as would a crime documentary fan. The tabloid fan would probably hate cable news, etc. So they seem to intentionally be going after different demographics/personality types in the programming they choose to air.
Comment by Missy — July 16, 2006 @ 10:59 am