Keith Olbermann Says Reports of His Death Greatly Exaggerated

when we no longer hear from him, i guess we will know for sure…

Just like any other business, when your customer base shrinks, you make changes to shore it back up. I just don’t think right now they are terribly concerned about increasing audience share. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be concerned, but from ll indications, they don’t give damn.

ok, i bit the bullet and listened to the video. i think the mere fact that Olby had to go on air and defend himself against his declining ratings proves he is in trouble. If he wasn’t worried, he wouldn’t be worried about what others are saying. He’s worried. Just like when he whipped out his diploma.

he makes his living attacking FOX news, and conservatives. why wouldn’t they dance on his (ratings) grave?

Mr. Christopher,

The fact that you can write such a story while failing to inform your readers that Olbermann (it’s spelled with two n’s if you’d like to fix the banner above the video) is down 44% year-to-year is irresponsible. We get it: You like Keith, you’re a fan and anything written about him are just products of a right-wing hate machine.

But the speculation over Olbermann began with stories in Daily Finance and the L.A. Times (neutral outlets with no axe to grind), and were only picked up by the likes of NewsBusters and the NY Post afterward.

It is these kind of omissions that have been made famous on Countdown. If Keith can learn to have one, ANY opposing viewpoint on his show (as O’Reilly does) or present all the facts when doing his repetitive, hateful show on a nightly basis (for the latest example, see the Scott Brown commentaries), he might be able to save his sinking ship. But ratings are ratings, and all the spin in the world from alleged journalists like you can’t change the math.

Thank you for your time.

Cableviews,

I don’t think you do get it, since I didn’t say “anything written about him are just products of a right-wing hate machine.” I said the opposite. In fact, based on that premise, I’d be accusing myself of being part of the right-wing hate machine.

As for the omissions you mention, I covered that ground yesterday, and linked to it today, as this is a followup to that. Here’s the link again:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/keith-olbermann-critics-smell-blood-in-the-water/

To summarize (again), the sky is not falling, but there is some reason for concern.

Here’s a different perspective. Some assumptions. That all news outlets are in the “ratings” business. That Comcast also in the ratings business. That more ratings means more ad revenue ad dollars. That Comcast/MSNBC would prefer more revenue than their getting now.

That MSNBC/Comcast would actually prefer (really prefer) more ratings and more revenue than their getting now.

10 years ago, HLN,CNN,MSNBC and Fox were averaging 200k daily viewers. Today they average 650K daily viewers. Last 10 years MSNBC has gone from 200k to 400k daily viewers. Note, below what the daily average is for the 4 cables.

Specifically the 8pm slot. I looked at same 4 cables in 2/2006. 8pm averaged 827k total viewers. Today, 8pm averaged 1.625 million total viewers. In 2006 8pm countdown had 452k total viewers. Today, countdown had 990k total viewers. Again, well below the average 8pm total viewer count.

I calulated this way, to make it more MSNBC friendly because otherwise O’Reilly’s growth since 2006 really skews the numbers against Countdown’s growth.

MSNBC at 8pm is getting beat up with cable news viewers growth. There have been two years with viewer spikes in last 10 years and MSNBC is losing to everyone in viewer growth except HLN (it’s getting close though)

growth in cables

I’m sure MSNBC wants a “smart” show. But, I would bet they would prefer to have a “Smart and growing at same rate as the other cable news or close to” show. If they don[‘t want to compete with ratings, fine. But I’m sure they’ll get over that eventually. Comcast/GE after all, public companies. They have shareholders!

Mr. Christopher-
Re ‘I said the opposite’.

You stated above that Olbermann was ‘mostly right’ that the criticism was emanating from the ‘right wing noise machine.’ .

How is mostly agreeing with KO means you said the opposite?

If you were to say the opposite you’d say he was ‘mostly wrong’ not ‘mostly right.’ And you used the same leftwing terminology ‘right wing noise machine’ too.

You’re barely distancing yourself from KO on this matter much less taking an opposite view.

.

Keith’s show is still on the air. It’s his mind that left a long time ago. And since he’s always saying that O’Reilly’s big ratings are meaningless, he evidently views TV ratings like a game of golf. The lower your score, the better you’re doing.

The other “problem” I believe Olbermann has created for himself is a “self-imposed” virtual box. With his rhetoric I feel Olbermann has trimmed the fat if you will, of day in day out consistent viewers that would watch his show daily. A self-imposed ratings cap.

I’m convinced that some of his viewers just peek in every once in awhile to see his reaction to lets say a Scott Brown election night coverage. Like wanting to witness a car accident (not nice people).

If he moves more moderate or just “towards” the center he’s going to take a lot of heat. I’m not sure, but I think that would go against Olbermann’s own personal dogma. Yes, shtick, but believes his own shtick in an ideological sense. Thus, the goes off the rails occasionally.

How does an Olbermann pivot to draw more ratings without making himself feel bad and/or pissing off his current viewers? The Box! Shareholders or dogma!

To retort to Christopher’s retort: You can’t assume that anyone reading your column today saw what you wrote yesterday about the 44% drop. That’s the big story and bears repeating outside of a link.

You also mention that one-month soft demo isn’t the end of the world, and that’s correct. But we’re talking about a full-year here, not one month.

You also didn’t refer to the L.A. Times or Daily Finance columns because NewsBusters and the NY Post better shape your perspective.

Overall, a very unbalanced article.

Simply put, if Olby doesn’t pick up more viewers and increase his demo ratings, advertising revenue will eventually fall to the point it doesn’t make sense to pay out the dollars to keep him on staff. The same process goes for all on air opinion show hosts…
It’s the same with this site…no ad revenue…no Tommy…
Now Tommy, go tell Colby to move over as he’s taking your spot with Keith.

This whole thing kind of reminds me when Olbermann brought in his college diploma to counter what Coulter had said about it; its laughably stupid and immature…..kind of Olbermann.

HA!

reminds me of the infamous proverb:

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.”

Olbermann does not want to be the slowest gazelle.

I don’t have access to the archive, but one has to wonder how many times Edward R. Murrow used precious minutes from his broadcast to hype his own ratings and reassure the audience that he’s still relevant.

I realize that most of the concern trolls here at Media Shite are ignoramuses of the worst kind, but are memories that short?

Back in 2002, MSNBC had another liberal host, Phil Donahue. In spite of the fact that Donahue had by far the highest ratings on MSNBC, the suits started meddling with his show. They handed down an edict to Donahue and the other hosts: if an anti-war guest was invited on, two pro-war guests had to invited on for “balance”. Never mind that most of the other hosts were also pro-war, making the ratio 3-1. When Gore Vidal was invited on Chris Matthews’ show, the ratio was upped to 4-1 (of course Vidal PWNED Matthews, Scarborough, Susan Molinari and Pat Caddell combined -he’s more than a match for any twelve war whores). Finally, Donahue’s show was canceled in spite of having the best ratings on MSNBC. Ashleigh Banfield and Jesse Ventura would also get the boot, while an avowed Nazi like the Savage Wiener (AKA Michael Savage) was given a show, as was raving nutcase Alan Keyes.

MSNBC went right into the crapper -the laughingstock of cable TV. It was only after Olbermann (and later, Maddow) came along that they finally got better ratings than CNN. They don’t get the kind of ratings Faux News does, but then Faux News doesn’t get the ratings of pro wrestling on USA Network or the tit-flicks on Cinemax.

“Faux” news. Very original. The folks at MSNBC look at ratings like a golf game. The lower your score, the better you’re doing. And where’s all the “balance” on Olbermann’s show? Getting all of his guests from Daily Kos and Huff Post doesn’t exactly make for a lively debate.

Olbermann is coming to realize that if you keep lying long enough, even the most dim-witted figures out you’re lying. The only other part of Olbermann’s schtick has been to foment hatred amongst his (never many and ever decreasing) viewers, causing them to act as his minions in spreading his vile slander. People like Olbermann never succeed for long–hitler is proof of that.

The format of his show doesn’t lend itself to moderates or people who don’t agree with him a majority of the time, thus he’ll never have the audience that Fox News has. But having his audience refer to themselves the so-called “smart 48%” is just pretty despicable. I’m glad I don’t watch that show anymore.