MSNBC brings back Canned Fridays…
MSNBC is once again dropping Scarborough Country from Friday nights and replacing it with a documentary. Even Countdown tonight at least will be a repeat as the 9/11 show will be rebroadcast. This is leading to charges of more cost cutting on the MSN MSNBC board…
UPDATE: There is some confusion about whether all of Countdown from 9/11 is being repeated or just Keith Olbermann’s commentary.
Countdown was new. Only the #1 Story Keith’s Commentary from 9.11.06 was rebroadcast.
Comment by IceMan — September 16, 2006 @ 12:10 am
We just get settled in on a show or a host and MSNBC jerks the rug out from under us.
I really liked the option of watching Joe on Friday nights.
Comment by cella — September 16, 2006 @ 11:05 am
cella, MSNBC cares nothing about bringing us the news. They have apparently deemed that these canned documentaries bring in more viewers, and that’s what their showing.
But what I don’t understand is why they’re just cancelling Scarborough on Fridays. Since the docs bring in more viewers than ANY MSNBC program, why not eliminate Friday’s other prime time programs as well. Or for that matter, why not let the network go 100% documentary, since these docs beat EVERY MSNBC news program ever shown.
Comment by Missy — September 16, 2006 @ 2:41 pm
It might as well go 100% documentary and stay in 3rd or 4th place. Must be their goal to never be #1 or even #2. It is the most disorganized network. On the weekends, they are not even on the air live after 4pm. Of course this is an improvement. They used to go off at noon.
These documentaries are, what, three years old or older? Why would I want to watch them instead of live TV. Don’t they advertise as a news channel? This is sad, as it use to be a good channel a long time ago. Now it is a joke.
You have programming 4pm-6pm and REPEAT it 6pm-8pm. Doesn’t anyone have an original thought in their head? Waste of prime time. They ought to move Chris Jansing up to prime time, serious news. This lady is a good journalist.
Get away from tabloid news as your primary news. I also like Joe Scarborough, but never sure when he will be on, and with serious news (political) which is what he has a lot of knowledge about.
Sorry to be so long.
Comment by Barb — September 16, 2006 @ 5:45 pm
You hit it on the noggin, Barb.
Comment by Bob — September 17, 2006 @ 1:11 am
Spud, may I respectfully say…it was always very obvious to me that MSNBC was not rerunning Olbermann’s whole Monday Countdown on Friday, but just the commentary. Maybe you need to spend time listening to Keith on Dan Patrick’s radio show. You can get a lot of good advance information on it as to what is to appear on Countdown.
As for Joe Scarborough, he’s a joke. Always wavering between liberal and conservative, hard news and tabloid junk, as if he’s looking for the magic key to ratings success and whatever it is, he’ll go with it once he finds it.
As for the other comments here, it’s obvious that the right-wing nuts want MSNBC to go 100% canned documentary all the time. Not because it would be better for MSNBC’s ratings (what do they care about MSNBC’s ratings?),but because it would achieve their primary objective: getting Keith Olbermann and his uncomfortable truths about the Bush Administration off the air.
They don’t like it when someone criticizes Bush. Not at ALL.
If you needed an explanation for all the Olbermann hatred here, there it is. In a nutshell.
Comment by tanne — September 17, 2006 @ 9:35 am
It was NOT obvious that MSNBC was only rerunning the “special comment”. Throughout the day they were advertising a special “encore” presentation of the 9/11 program. At some point (probably when Keith decided he needed to cover the Presidential press conference) the plans changed, and the promos changed too. For the hour or two before Countdown new promos ran, stating that the “special comment” would be replayed.
So regardless of what Olby said on the radio, based on the promos MSNBC was running it seems pretty clear that the original plan was for him to take a day off and just rerun the 9/11 show. Spud came to that conclusion and so did I, at least until MS scrapped that promo and started using a new one, albeit rather late in the game.
Comment by johnny dollar — September 17, 2006 @ 3:46 pm
If you look at the #s, it is obvious that the documentaries are not the ratings hit they were projected to be. And the reason why? Why did the Friday experiment work, and the all week thing not work? Well, they must have read my previous comments here, saying Scarborough is a BAD lead in to the docs. The Friday experiment worked because - it pains me to say this - Countdown was a GOOD lead in for the docs. So now they’re seeing if I was right.
And tanne - it was heartening to read what you said about Scarborough. He does indeed go back and forth between liberal and conservative, and hard news and tabloid. I think you should consider the lib and conservative thing when your “right-wing nuts” post here. They may lash out at your favorite guy, but the fact that there are two hosts at MSNBC pretending to represent conservatives is like a sword in the heart. And adding fuel to the fire: Pat Buchanan, who muddies the water even more by writing a book lumping legal and illegal imigrants together. Three anti-war muddy flip-flop sorta Republican, sorta conservative, maybe libertarian guys giving anyone who watches MSNBC a very confusing false picture of what a conservative Republican is.
To be honest, it is very clear where the Hardball and Countdown hosts really stand. I think most “right-wing nuts” would rather get rid of Tucker and Scarborough.
Comment by erljr — September 18, 2006 @ 12:47 am
OMG! I agree with tanne, but to a point, of course. Everything she said about Scarborough is true. He IS a flake; conservative one minute, lib the next; tabloid one minute, serious news the next.
And yes, we’d love for your friend to go off the air.
But my question is, why is it just Scarborough whose show is jacked around, and why just Fridays? His is the only program on all of cable news, that I know of, anyway, that is not shown on Fridays. All other program (of which I’m aware, anyway) is shown every day at the same time.
MSNBC is having enough trouble in identifying itself without changing time slots as well! So if they want to yank Scarborough, go ahead, but take him off EVERY day, not just Friday. Or if they want to go all documentaries, then do it for ALL of prime time Friday, not just Joe’s show only.
Singling out that one hour per week makes no sense whatsoever.
Comment by Missy — September 18, 2006 @ 1:19 am
Just stumbled on this thread. Interesting comments. Just one question: Who’s this Olbermannnnn guy? Is he on the radio or something? And “What’s an MSNBC?”
Comment by Jack — September 18, 2006 @ 8:23 am
Jack, based on their ratings, you’re not the only one to ask that question!
Comment by Missy — September 18, 2006 @ 11:10 am