For the last several days at tvbythenumbers.com, an interesting numbers game has been playing out. It looks like Maddow is slowly closing in on Hannity. OK, they're not that close yet but it's getting closer.
For the last year, I would have thought that O'Reilly and Hannity were beating the Olbermann/Maddow combo by say 3 to 1. O'Reilly still on average clobbers Keith by a 3 to 1 margin and then there's the occasional good story that get Nancy Grace beating Keith in the 25-54 range but overall, Keith is always ahead of her.
What has become interesting is that lately, Rachel at 9pm is outdrawing Keith at 8. That's even more surprising since there's always a big drop-off from O'Reilly to Hannity of about a milion people.
So what's going on. Are people flipping the dial from FOX to MSNBC at 9? Why has Rachel become more popular than Keith and what does this mean to future lineups at MSNBC? After all, the right moves and strategy could be the break that MSNBC needs to compete on an even basis with FOX.