What if notoriously conservative Comcast's aim is to put down MSNBC without drawing political fire?
Throughout the ultra-hyped (cue music)
Blizzard '15, MSNBC became Comcast's de facto alternative weather channel - they already partially own a dedicated weather channel:
it's called The Weather Channel, Phil! - embracing the particularly insidious CNN-styled standard of 24/7 airplane-gone-missing, one-story-only 'disaster porn journalism,' foregoing any veneer of editorial mission or commitment, as if nothing else in the country or world was newsworthy. Fox behaved like Fox: covering the storm a few minutes per hour but otherwise getting on with whatever it is they do.
In the ratings, MSNBC consistently scores distantly behind Fox - CNN, too - usually by ratios of 2:1, 3:1 or more (recent sample).
Say what you will, Fox's programming remains consistently formatted throughout the week, giving their audience reason to tune in, and stay tuned-in, through the weekend. MSNBC's weekend programming, though somewhat more on-message recently, remains largely littered with off-message prison and gotcha sensational programming - to many, entirely alienating and unwatchable - unrelated to their weekday fare and irrelevant to what their core audience has reason to expect from a legitimate news outlet.
Why, then, forsake - insult, even - its audience when the competition is hammering away at theirs, with such obvious success? MSNBC has every opportunity, for example, to repurpose (and, in turn, promote) segments from weekday programs that only air once - Ed Schultz, Al Sharpton, Alex Wagner - on weekends, at virtually no additional expense. Comcast has every opportunity to promote MSNBC across its properties.
A simple, obvious explanation is incompetent programming, in which case MSNBC President Phil Griffin should've been shown the door years ago. But what if notoriously conservative Comcast's aim is to put down MSNBC without drawing political fire?
That was among the many concerns when, in 2011, Comcast was granted approval to acquire NBC. Whether or not Keith Olbermann's then-immediate departure was forced or by choice remains undetermined (background). But it raised the ugly specter of a freshly-empowered conservative telecommunications behemoth crushing an increasingly essential counterbalancing voice, something that might not sit well across the aisle when future acquisitions (aka Time-Warner) came under legislative review. Why not, then, just let it bleed?
Consider Rupert Murdoch famously operating the NY Post at a loss for decades, for the political influence it buys him. Consider Clear Channel unceremoniously terminating Howard Stern's profitable six-station syndication deal, when, in 2004, he turned 180º against Bush and the Iraq invasion/occupation. Consider Clear Channel paying ridiculous sums to Rush Limbaugh as his ratings decline.
These losses can fairly be considered indirect contributions to the broader conservative agenda, which is why it would not be without precedent for Comcast to be driving a wedge between MSNBC and its audience.
Is MSNBC being set up as an underperforming asset; Comcast's sacrificial contribution to their politics? No telling, for certain.
But no company should be in a position to influence public opinion to the extent that some have attained. Rather than determining if, say, Comcast should be allowed to acquire Time-Warner, the debate should be about breaking up these media giants, along the lines of too-big-to-fail banks.
It's reported that Yahoo is shopping for cable networks (background). I don't know their politics but, all things considered, anyone but Comcast.