Laying Less Cable

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Cable television viewership declined at the three largest cable networks, according to the Huffington Post, citing a report in Variety.

Fox News Channel remained the alpha dog among its competitors, but experienced a 13 percent drop in its prime time audience compared to a year ago, according to Variety. Likewise, MSNBC was off 29 percent and CNN 15 percent.  HLN actually showed a 21 percent gain over its 2012 audience.

With 2014 being an election year, polarized voters are likely to boost their favorite cable news network ratings.

No Need to Stay Up Late With Alec Baldwin Anymore; MSNBC Show Cancelled

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Paltry ratings, alleged diva-esque behavior and a two-week suspension over a purported homophobic rant against a New York Post photographer has led to MSNBC cancelling the weekly Up Late With Alec Baldwin gabfest after only four episodes, the Post reported yesterday.

Baldwin, whose acting ability on Tina Fey's 30 Rock sitcom and in films such as Glengarry Glen Ross has made him a fan fave of "TUOL," drew only 395,000 viewers for his interview of actress Debra Winger on what proved to be his final MSNBC show after complaints from gay rights advocates and others led MSNBC to suspend him for two weeks after his run-in with the Post photog who was snapping pics of Baldwin's wife and child.

Unnamed sources at MSNBC claimed Baldwin was difficult to work with, and made numerous unreasonable demands, such as his own make-up room. "TUOL" sheds only crocodile tears for MSNBC over the failed Baldwin talk show, because this blog prefers talk show hosts who are journalists discussing matters of substance over infotainment vanity yakfests.

Wash Times Casts Paul Adrift Over Plagiarized Column

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The Washington Times is discontinuing Sen. Rand Paul's (R.-Ky.) weekly column after BuzzFeed reported that his Sept. 20  Times column lifted passages from a Dan Stewart article in The Week without attribution, the Gawker.com Web site reports.

The Times' decision to end the column that Paul began writing last summer is the sour cherry atop a melted sundae of a week for the 50-year-old Republican and Tea Party fave who was elected to the Senate in 2010. Last week, Politico and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC alleged that speeches given by Paul have plagiarized a variety of sources, including Associated Press articles and Wikipedia pages for the films Stand and Deliver and Gattaca, Additionally, BuzzFeed claims Paul's book, Government Bullies, cribbed from a 2003 Heritage Foundation study without attribution.

Confronted with these embarrassing missteps, Sen. Paul stepped up to the plate and blamed his staff. Still, it seems as if Paul, an opthalmologist, doctors his written work as well.

Cable News Rivals Compete to Kill-Off Ill Congressman

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Eighty-two-year-old Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), whose 43 years in the House makes him Florida's longest-serving Congressman, is gravely ill at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, according to an Associated Press report today.

A sad turn of events for Young, who just last week announced his intent to retire from Congress, but not as sad as the fate bestowed on him yesterday, initially by Fox News' Gretchen Carlson on-air, and then via Twitter separately by MSNBC's Frank Thorp and Luke Russert, according to the Politico Web site.

During her afternoon gabfest, Carlson reported a Fox News Alert that Young had died, only to apologize and issue a correction later in the broadcast. Meanwhile, Russert and Thorp each tweeted that Young wouldn't get any older, only to tweet again that their reports of his death, like Mark Twain once said, were greatly exaggerated.

As a long-time member of the House Appropriations Committee, Young oversaw military appropriations. Unfortunately, for him and his loved ones, there is no defense to sloppy journalism. "Get it first, get it fast, and (maybe) get it right," just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Keith Olbermann Returning to the Line of Fire

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With Vegas oddsmakers focusing their action on what Kate & William will name the royal newborn ("TUOL" scored 20-1 odds on Murray), it's been impossible to lay down bets on how long baseball aficionado and political firebrand Keith Olbermann will survive his return to his ESPN sports commentary roots.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Olbermann inked a two-year deal to helm a late-night show on ESPN2. It's part of his career resurrection that also saw him signed by Turner Sports to co-host an Atlanta-based TBS program with Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley that will cover the MLB post-season, which on TBS includes the National League championships, both Wild Card playoff games and 18 League Division playoff games, Eckersley pitched before both the unforgiving fans of the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, so he should be able to withstand any controversy generated by the volatile Olbermann.

For Olbermann, the ESPN2 gig marks a less-than-triumphant return to where his career took off as co-anchor of ESPN's SportsCenter with Dan Patrick that came to a rancorous end in 1997. From there, Olbermann, a knowledgeable and devoted fan of the National Pastime (think Bob Costas bitten by a rabid animal), aired out his liberal viewpoint on MSNBC's Countdown for eight years, before unamicably parting ways with the cable news network to join Al Gore's Current TV (see "TUOL" post 2/8/11), before an unfriendly parting of the ways...(you get the idea).

Olbermann has been absent from television for more than a year, but has amassed more than 450,000 followers on Twitter.  His return to sports this fall on ESPN2 is occurring as rival Fox Sports 1 cable tv rolls out Crowd Goes Wild on weeknights that lured another television icon, Regis Philbin, back onto the airwaves.

"TUOL" believes Olbermann getting fired by ESPN2 within the year is more of a sure thing than Prince Murray.

Fraying Cable News Audience

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The Huffington Post reported today that all three major cable news outlets, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, continue to suffer lower ratings than in Election Year 2012, with a notable loss among the age 25 to 54 demographic group that advertisers crave.

Fox sustained a 33 percent drop-off in its viewership, followed by CNN's 28 percent plunge and MSNBC's more modest 4 percent loss, according to the Huffington Post article. Fox News, still in first place among cable news viewers for its 11th straight year, may take note that bloviator Bill O'Reilly's demographic ratings sank 26 percent. Look for his next best-selling historical tome to be entitled: "Who Killed My Show?"

Lest one think the cable audience is smartening up, CNN's sister network, HLN, enjoyed a skyrocketing 17 percent increase in its audience (and a 23 percent boost among age 25-54 viewers) owing to its around the clock coverage of the Jodi Arias murder trial.

Revolving Door--The Sequel

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David Axelrod, senior advisor and senior strategist during President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns, has signed on as a contributor to NBC News and theMSNBC cable network, just a week after  former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs did the same.

Axelrod, who turns 58 this week, recently was named director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, his alma mater, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Harris School of Public Policy. The Chicago-homesick "TUOL" staff remembers way back when Axelrod toiled as a political writer for The Chicago Tribune.

If Fox News has served as a haven--or witness protection program, depending on one's political viewpoint--for former GOP presidential aspirants, ranging from Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to recently hired Herman Cain, then NBC News and MSNBC is fast becoming the retirement community for Obama Administration refugees. Meanwhile, broadcast and print journalists by the bushel-full ponder voluntary buyout offers.

Comcast Completes NBC Universal Purchase a Year Early

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Philadelphia-based cable giant Comcast paid Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric $16.7 billion this week to purchase the remaining 49 percent interest in NBC/Universal, a year ahead of the planned completion of the acquisition (see "TUOL" post 9/2/11), according to accounts by Bloomberg News, Mediabistro.com and others.

The deal, expected to be finalized by the end of March, fattens GE's bank account by $12 billion, includes a $4 billion debt guarantee from Comcast, $700k in preferred stock and another $1.4 billion to acquire real estate, including NBC's 30 Rockefeller Plaza building and CNBC's Englewood Cliffs, N.J., headquarters.

Comcast takes on the NBC broadcast network, cable networks Bravo, USA Network and MSNBC, as well as Universal Studios and the Universal theme parks. According to the Bloomberg News article, NBC Universal's enterprise value has jumped to $39.1 billion from $37.5 billion when Comcast initially gobbled up 51 percent of the entertainment company.

As a Comcast subscriber, "TUOL" may have something further to say about the merger in the future, on a weekday, between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Oiling the Revolving Door

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Robert Gibbs, senior advisor to President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign, has been hired as a contributor to MSNBC and NBC News, Politico reported.

The 41-year-old Auburn, Alabama, native was the 28th White House press secretary, serving in that role for President Obama from 2009 to 2011. Gibbs' association with President Obama dates back to 2004. He also served early on as press secretary during now-Secretary of State John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Gibbs joins a long list of former White House shills who have crossed-over into the news media once they stop taking flak from the White House Press Corps, including Tony Snow (Fox News), Clinton White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos (ABC News), Pierre Sallinger (ABC News), Bill Moyers (PBS) and Dana Perino (Fox News), though, to be fair, some of them were making a return trip.

Not surprisingly, public skepticism spikes whenever a former presidential spokesperson appears as a talking head on a network to offer informed, "objective" commentary about an opposition party's position or representative. It doesn't thrill lifetime journalists either to see these ex-shills begin their ink-stained wretch career on the top rung of the news media ladder.

Buchanan Indefinitely Suspended by MSNBC

Image by FlickrPhotosAccount via FlickrConservative firebrand commentator Pat Buchanan, 73, has been indefinitely suspended by MSNBC, according to the cable news station's president, Bill Griffin.

Buchanan hasn't appeared on MSNBC since October. Although he told talk radio bloviators Hugh Hewitt and Sean Hannity in separate appearances that his absence was attributable to medical problems (excessive bile, perhaps?), Poynter.org, The Huffington Post and other media outlets reported the underlying reason may be a chapter in Buchanan's latest book, Suicide of a Superpower, entitled The Death of White America, that suggests the nation's European core has been overrun by immigrants.

Griffin was quoted on Poynter.org as branding some of Buchanan's ideas "[not] appropriate for national dialogue on MSNBC." Apparently, Griffin either experienced the slowest epiphany on record about Buchanan, or like most of the nation, doesn't watch MSNBC programming regularly.

Since Griffin's announcement, Buchanan complained he is the target of a smear campaign by activist Van Jones and his group, Color of Change, as well as the Anti-Defamation League and the Human Rights Campaign.

Buchanan served under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and three times sought the presidency, in 1992 and 1996 as a GOP candidate, and in 2000, heading the Reform Party ticket. He was the original host of CNN's Crossfire, and co-founded The American Conservative magazine in 2002.
He has come under fire on numerous occasions for alleged insensitivity to people of color, as well as for alleged anti-Semitism and downplaying of the Holocaust.

The hard-working staff of "TUOL" always associates Buchanan with the late columnist Molly Ivins, who commented on the so-called "Culture War" speech Buchanan delivered at the GOP National Convention in 1992, quipping that it "probably sounded  better in the original German."

Christian Metal Rocker Rocks MSNBC's Rachel Maddow with $50m Suit

Image via WikipediaMinnesota-based Christian rocker and radio talk show host Bradlee Dean has filed a $50 million complaint alleging defamation and false light in the District of Columbia Superior Court against MSNBC gabber Rachel Maddow.

The case, Bradlee Dean & You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International v. NBC Universal et al. (Case No. 0006055-11) arises from an August 9, 2010, segment of Maddow's prime-time program that cited the following quote from Dean on his radio show:

"Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America. They themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible, the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than the American Christians do. Because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination. If America won't enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that."

According to an article in The Huffington Post, Dean alleges Maddow deliberately ignored Dean's disclaimer that he was not calling for the killing of gays. In fact, after broadcasting Dean's statement, Maddow read Dean's disclaimer: "[W]e have never and will never call for the execution of homosexuals."

The Rev. Bradlee Dean (Smith) is drummer for the Junkyard Prophet Christian metal rock band and  pastor of the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide Christian youth ministry that allegedly includes among its beliefs that gay people were responsible for the Holocaust.  He claims the defendants, including Maddow, MSNBC and The Minnesota Independent, took his statements out of context.

Although the 10-page Complaint acknowledges Maddow read the disclaimer on air, it alleges she "did so in a manner that gave the impression to the audience that Dean's disclaimer was disingenuous, insincere, false and meaningless." The ever-humble "TUOL" legal team wouldn't be surprised if the court similarly describes the Complaint at some point down the line.

NBC News Taps Guthrie as Chief Legal Analyst

Image via WikipediaThirty-nine-year-old Savannah Guthrie is the Today Show's new chief legal analyst.

Guthrie, who joined NBC News in 2007 and is the former co-host of MSNBC's  Daily Rundown.  She is a former litigator and a magna cum laude graduate of  the Georgetown University Law Center.

She succeeds ABC Legal Analyst and Mediaite mogul Dan Abrams.

Will Olbermann Air 'Worst Reception in the World' Segment on New Show?

Image via WikipediaWhen Keith Olbermann last month departed Countdown with Keith Olbermann after numerous run-ins with MSNBC and took his bawl and went home, avid followers detected a disturbance in the Force as there no longer was a progressive bloviater to offset Fox's cadre of conservative criers. 

Fret no more.  Olbermann, who rants, excoriates and eviscerates, also tweets. He scooped The New York Times and other media outlets by announcing on Twitter that he has joined Current TV. The 52-year-old former Fox, ESPN and MSNBC employee now has an equity interest at Current TV, where he will serve as chief news officer and will executive produce a one-hour news and commentary program.

Current TV was co-founded in 2005 by former Vice-President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. It reaches into roughly 75 million homes worldwide, though generally in  the digital tier of cable tv systems. Olbermann, who attracted approximately a million viewers nightly on Countdown, has his work cut out for him as Current TV's average Prime Time audience is closer to 23,000, according to The New York Times. Repeats of  "This American Life" are among its nightly fare.

Olbermann will not return to the airwaves until the spring. When he broke ties with MSNBC, he reportedly pocked $7 million in severance pay, but inked a non-compete that keeps him off competing networks, such as CNN and FOX,  for a period of time that has not been made public. The non-compete pact may not include Current TV, which is independently owned by Gore and others, and not part of a media conglomerate.

"We are delighted to provide Keith with the independent platform and freedom that Current can and does uniquely offer," Gore is reported as saying. Freedom, as Janis Joplin was wont to remind us, is just another word for nothing left to lose.

2d Cir. Rekindles MSNBC Reporter's Libel Suit Against Network

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In Claudia DiFolco v. MSNBC Cable LLC, Rick Kaplan & Scott Leon (Docket No. 09-2821-cv), the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last week reinstated defamation and breach of contract claims against the cable network brought by Claudia DiFolco, former Los Angeles correspondent for MSNBC at the Movies and MSNBC Entertainment Hot List.


The appellate court reversed the March 30, 2007, decision of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Loretta Preska's dismissal of DiFolco's lawsuit alleging defamation, breach of contract and tortious interference with prospective business relations for failure to state a claim by reinstating the contract and defamation counts.  Writing for the three-judge panel, Judge Roger Miner said the trial court precipitously accepted the defendants' argument that the plaintiff had resigned.

DiFolco contended that MSNBC President Rick Kaplan wrongly interpreted an email she sent about alleged mistreatment of her by producers of her programs to be her resignation before her two-year contract expired.  She alleged MSNBC leaked her purported departure to online industry news sites Inside Cable, News Blues and TV Spy, which she claimed defamed her in online articles. TV Spy posted a pseudonymous comment that DiFolco "believe[d] that cleavage, overtime in the makeup chair and a huge desire to become a star is...how to pay your dues," while the other two sites claimed she quit MSNBC mid-contract.


Judge Preska ruled DiFolco's repudiation of her agreement negated her breach of contract claim and found the defenses of truth and fair comment (opinion) defeated her defamation claims.  The appeals court, however, noted that opinions grounded on false facts are actionable, so Judge Preska prematurely ruled TV Spy's posting was non-defamatory, and that the parties' email exchange did not reflect unequivocally DiFolco's intention to resign as correspondent, giving new life to the breach of contract allegation.

In this instance, MSNBC, whose new slogan is "Leaning Forward," may fall on its face.

CNN Prime Time Ratings Continue to Plummet

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CNN ("Catastrophic News Numbers") has followed up its grim 4th quarter prime-time progamming ratings (see "TUOL" post 12/17/09) with an even more diminished audience, according to 1st quarter 2010 ratings figures reported in today's New York Times.

The Times story reports that in February, not only was CNN's prime time slate bested by MSNBC and Fox News, but also finished behind its own HLN network and CNBC, which received a boost from the Winter Olympics.  CNN personalities took it on the chin, with Larry King's audience down 43 percent for the quarter. King has a quarter of the viewership of Fox's Sean Hanity, routinely  loses to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and even is getting thumped by HLN's relative newcomer, Joy Behar.

The news isn't much brighter for Anderson Cooper, whose ratings dropped 42 percent in the first quarter, and more important, 46 percent among the 25- to 54-year-old viewer demographic that advertisers crave.  CNN's Campbell Brown's 8 p.m. program had its worst results ever in the 1st quarter among this viewer group.

Even CNN's previous morning dominance was overturned, with MSNBC's  caffeine-crazed "Morning Joe" beating CNN's "American Morning" telecast.  Meanwhile, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Greta Van Susteren all enjoyed a substantial ratings boost compared to the previous year's figures.

Might be time for CNN to ship Larry King's suspenders to the Smithsonian and stop dazzling itself with computer graphics and refocus its attention on content and personalities who can deliver it.

CNN Also-Ran Among Desired Prime-Time News Network Viewers

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According to a story by Bill Carter in today's The New York Times, viewers ages 25 to 54, the most sought-after demographic group by advertisers, prefer the prime-time opinionated offerings of Fox News Channel and MSNBC to CNN.

Not only does prime-time programming on CNN ("Crashing News Network") lag behind first-place Fox and MSNBC, but also has a smaller prime-time audience than its own sister network HLN (one-time "Headline News"). Among the targeted  age group, Fox averages 699,000 weeknight prime-time viewers to 307,000 on MSNBC and 297,000 on CNN ("Competitive Not Now"). In recent months, CNN star Anderson Cooper's show has lost in the ratings to a rerun of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, meaning that viewers would rather watch a recycled rant from Keith than go "360" with Anderson.

If it's any consolation, CNN still whips MSNBC in the ratings at all other hours of the day, with  "American Morning," for example, besting MSNBC's "Morning Joe." Also, the average number of CNN viewers in 2009 exceeds its number of viewers in 2006 or 2007.

"TUOL" is surprised that even news network ratings champ Fox, which saw a 10 percent boost in its prime-time ratings in 2009, still draws a paltry fewer than 700,000 viewers nationwide.  Perhaps the cable news honchos should consider adding either the prefix "CSI-" or "Law & Order:" to their program titles.

Obama Cops Bush Attitude Toward House Guests

MSNBC personalities Chris Matthews, Keith Obermann and Rachel Maddow have taken their share of criticism for allegedly being front-row cheerleaders for President Barack Obama. They may want to move a few rows back based on the Obama Administration's refusal to turn over records requested by MSNBC containing the names of all visitors to the White House since January, thereby continuing the policy pursued by the Bush Administration.

The Secret Service declined to produce the visitors roster requested by MSNBC. The Obama Administration presently is arguing that the lists of visitors are not agency records of the Dept. of Homeland Security, under whose aegis the Secret Service operates, that would be subject to production under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [5 U.S.C. sec. 552], but rather, are FOIA-exempt documents pursuant to the Presidential Records Act [44 U.S.C. sec. 2203].

The Obama Administration has professed to favoring a new era of "transparency" in the conduct of government, but has followed the path of its predecessor on issues such as releasing photos related to Guanatanamo Bay detainees. At Tuesday's White House press briefing, spokesperson Robert Gibbs said the Administration is reviewing its position concerning the visitors list.

Meanwhile,Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ("CREW") today filed a complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. CREW is seeking the release of any visitors list as to a select group of coal industry executives who have visited the Obama White House. Watchdog groups, such as CREW, frequently make such requests, arguing that such lists reveal whether any individuals or group are exerting excessive influence regarding governmental policy decisions.

In 2007 and again in January 2009, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled in CREW's favor on its requests for visitor logs from the Bush White House in search of leaders of the religious right, holding that the requested documents were covered under the FOIA. The Obama Administration is pressing the Bush Administration's appeal of Judge Lamberth's ruling.

Visitor records concerning the White House are maintained in two databases: "WAVES"(Worker & Visitor Entry System) and "ACES"(Access Control Records System).