The First Post, a UK website, has an interesting article about Rachel Maddow's new program. The article presents her as "becoming as much the face of change in America as Barack Obama himself."
I've been watching Rachel online since her show appeared (the new web page is nice) and reading about her success. My question is, will there be a big shift in TV news programming after what looks to be like a major political shift in the probable election of Barack Obama to the presidency?
The First Post article, titled "Maddow About the Girl", can be found here:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/...
I'm not sure how wide-sweeping the change that is coming will be, but it seems likely to be expansive, and the media is sure to be strongly affected.
How?
The article notes that Rachel is the "face of a trend, not a novelty." Think winds of change sweeping through American media, as well as politics. Which media outlets will grow? Which will decline?
Here's one indication of success--and change:
Last week, MSNBC, the cable news channel competing with Fox and CNN, published the ratings for The Rachel Maddow Show, launched in the 9pm prime-time slot just four weeks earlier. Maddow had doubled their audience, from around 800,000 to a steady 1.7m. "I'm pinching myself," says Phil Griffin, MSNBC president, saying that he expects a new show to take two or three years to do this.
And this:
MSNBC was the first to poach the format for 'real' news, letting Keith Olbermann...adopt an openly dissenting left-of-centre, anti-Bush stance for his 8pm Countdown news show. That show, which also features Maddow, now beats CNN every night in the crucial 25 to 54-year-old demographic, the Holy Grail of the media business.
I suggest that "hard right" dialogue (and the bullying, frankly bizarre antics) in current media behavior will undergo some transformation.
Is the pop-culture (and news-culture) revolution coming?:
But for Maddow, drawing the 25-to-54 demographic, to beat tired old Larry King on CNN and attract even half as many viewers as Bill O'Reilly amounts to a pop-culture revolution.
Perhaps the most telling description is that "Maddow is the opposite of the O'Reilly American in every way."