It
turns out building a network around Joe Scarborough wasn't a brilliant move after all:
How badly has MSNBC been hurt by the loss of Keith Olbermann? Enough, apparently, to be on the verge of falling back into third place among the cable news networks.
The ratings results for the month of September show that CNN, long relegated to third place in the prime-time cable news competition, is edging its way back up, while MSNBC is moving in the other direction.
For the month, CNN averaged 257,000 viewers in prime time in the category that counts most to the networks — viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 — because that is where the advertising money goes for news programming. MSNBC was just barely ahead with 269,000 viewers. (Neither approached the leader, Fox News, with 526,000).
It's actually worse than those numbers suggest, because MSNBC's numbers were inflated by the GOP's first debate of the month. With both that debate and the CNN tea party debate factored out, CNN was actually in second, ahead of MSNBC.
Both CNN and MSNBC had one especially strong night because of the Republican presidential debates. With those excluded, however, CNN beat MSNBC, 219,000 to 207,000. A year ago, when Mr. Olbermann still occupied the 8 p.m. hour, MSNBC edged CNN by 83,000 viewers, with 256,000 viewers for MSNBC to 173,000 for CNN.
Overall, CNN's numbers are up by 38% in Olbermann's old hour and MSNBC's are down by roughly the same amount. But don't worry, the architect behind Olbermann's departure says it's all good:
Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, had a succinct answer to the question of whether the network is feeling the impact of Mr. Olbermann’s departure: “No.”
He added, “I’m confident that we will increase our ratings as politics become the dominant story over the next year.”
Well that's a brilliant strategy. Rely on a quadrennial event to boost your ratings. It's almost like NBC and the Olympics ... except in this case, you can't buy exclusive rights to cover the presidential election. So even though Griffin's probably right, 2012 will boost MSNBC's ratings, it will also boost those of CNN and Fox — and, of course, Current TV, which is exactly where you can now find Keith Olbermann, every night at 8:00 PM and 11:00 PM ET.
