If you were waiting for a daily news program featuring a lightweight, partisan hack with absolutely no charisma, then MSNBC really came through for you Monday night.
Greta Van Susteren’s “For the Record” debuted—not to be confused with the Fox show she no longer has--“On the Record”. Despite the preposition change, Van Susteren’s show was pretty much indistinguishable from her old show on Fox. A softball question followed by an occasional harder one that she allowed the guest to evade. I really don’t understand CEO Phillip Griffin’s reasoning for hiring her: she had low ratings with a conservative audience at Fox—does he think she’ll find more conservatives over at MSNBC?
As stupid as that sounds, NBC honchos seem to be doubling down on that strategy. Greta joins Morning Joe, Chris Mathews, and more recently, Megyn “Don’t Worry Kids, Santa isn’t White” Kelly. Pretty good lineup for the demographic of people who are too stupid to realize they aren’t watching Fox.
On the other hand, Joy-Ann Reid is a real hard-hitting journalist who doesn’t know what a softball question is. She is smart, quick on her feet, and can be a pitbull when a guest tries to evade her. She’s also given MSNBC some of their highest numbers in over a decade:
Airing on the weekends from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m., AM Joy delivered the time period’s biggest total viewer audience since the 1st quarter of 2003 and biggest A25-54 audience since Q4 2012.
Despite a crushing election, this nation leans left. Trump was beaten in the popular vote by 3 million votes, and Democrats won the majority of votes in the Senate and House as well. If ratings were based on arcane rules or gerrymandering like our national elections, then yes, MSNBC’s strategy would make sense. But they aren’t. Ratings are actually based on popular opinion. There is a huge market for the American progressive audience---one, I might add, that is not currently being filled.
Instead of trying to peel a few of the age 80+, angry, white racists from Fox, MSNBC could be making a play for the large 25-54 audience who think Trump needs his feet held to the fire over hard-fought programs, civil rights... and just plain civility.
Ironically, MSNBC was in the prime position for this market, and they already had the voice. Joy was already on the payroll, scored big in ratings, and Griffin could have hired her for a fraction of the bloated salary given to Van Susteren.
All in all, this was a colossally stupid move, but then again, I live in reality. MSNBC has shown very little interest in that demographic.