MSNBC needs to go off the air

[Jul]

MSNBC needs to go off the air because of 4 things. 1: The anchors are very bad. 2: the news coverage in the daytime is not that good and 3: MSNBC doesn't have access to non NBC TV stations feeds in the USA to use for breaking news coverage. CNN and FOX NEWS channel use multiple feeds from various TV stations from the same market where a breaking news story is happening, MSNBC doesn't. MSNBC uses the feeds of the NBC affiliates only and doesn't have that access to go the story if the NBC affiliate is not there to show live pictures of a story like CNN and FOX might be covering and sometimes, they can't get access to the satellite feed of an NBC station to dip into the affiliate's coverage and have to go to the NBC affiliate's website to get the live streaming video for breaking news coverage, sometimes. And 4: The ratings are very bad and will never improve. This channel needs to go off the air now and let cable systems replace it with a cable channel that will get ratings.

 

[Nate Wesley]

MSNBC's 'bad' ratings were much worse six/seven years ago than they are now. The trio of "Hardball", "Countdown", and "Scarborough Country" have found reliable and sizable audiences that shows like "Nachman", "The Savage Nation", and "Allen Keyes Is Making Sense" never delivered. As they painfully learned in trying to steal audience share from the talk radio tabloidry that Fox News specializes in, sometimes its just better to attract your own viewers. That's exactly what they have done, and the ratings have improved.

I don't think local TV affiliation is a reliable criticism. As for MSNBC using NBC affils for coverage--well, who would you expect them to go to first? You say that as if the 'superior' live coverage seen on CNN or Fox News has always come from a CNN or Fox TV affiliate. That's not always true. Some local TV news stations are actually affils for both CNN and Fox, or more likely, CNN and MSNBC (through NBC). CNN has no direct broadcast network partner, though they flirted with merging news operations CBS. And many smaller-market Fox TV affiliates have no news departments at all.

In many respects, MSNBC is a welcome happy medium between amongst whatever irks you about the other two news channels.

 

[tothedj]

If MSNBC wants to survive, 1. A name change is in order, like 'NBC News Channel",
2. Overhaul the program schedule, 3. get some of the people from NBC News like
Brian Williams and Matt Lauer to do special interviews, and 4. Start doing half-hour
news cycles like another cable news service; This and other implimentations might
make them competitive, we shall see.

 

[bhayes1016]

They do need a name change; If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft no longer has a stake in the network, so the "MSNBC" name really make no sense.

 

[KeithE4]

They do need a name change; If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft no longer has a stake in the network, so the "MSNBC" name really make no sense.

Microsoft is still a partner in MSNBC.com, but AFAIK, they're no longer involved in the TV operation.

 

[jackandcoke]

MSNBC needs to go off the air because of 4 things. 1: The anchors are very bad. 2: the news coverage in the daytime is not that good and 3: MSNBC doesn't have access to non NBC TV stations feeds in the USA to use for breaking news coverage. CNN and FOX NEWS channel use multiple feeds from various TV stations from the same market where a breaking news story is happening, MSNBC doesn't. MSNBC uses the feeds of the NBC affiliates only and doesn't have that access to go the story if the NBC affiliate is not there to show live pictures of a story like CNN and FOX might be covering and sometimes, they can't get access to the satellite feed of an NBC station to dip into the affiliate's coverage and have to go to the NBC affiliate's website to get the live streaming video for breaking news coverage, sometimes. And 4: The ratings are very bad and will never improve. This channel needs to go off the air now and let cable systems replace it with a cable channel that will get ratings.

Woooooo. One cable channel delivers real news for one hour a night and you rightwing nutjobs go crazy, don't you? Sorry, pal, you're a few years too late. Keith Olbermann has had the time to grow "Countdown" into the one TV newscast Democrats can watch without wretching, and it's become MSNBC's top-rated program. They're onto something.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

MSNBC does need to work out a better joint venture with other news sources out there if it wishes to survive.

 

[Irishfl]

MSNBC needs to go off the air because of 4 things. 1: The anchors are very bad. 2: the news coverage in the daytime is not that good and 3: MSNBC doesn't have access to non NBC TV stations feeds in the USA to use for breaking news coverage. CNN and FOX NEWS channel use multiple feeds from various TV stations from the same market where a breaking news story is happening, MSNBC doesn't. MSNBC uses the feeds of the NBC affiliates only and doesn't have that access to go the story if the NBC affiliate is not there to show live pictures of a story like CNN and FOX might be covering and sometimes, they can't get access to the satellite feed of an NBC station to dip into the affiliate's coverage and have to go to the NBC affiliate's website to get the live streaming video for breaking news coverage, sometimes. And 4: The ratings are very bad and will never improve. This channel needs to go off the air now and let cable systems replace it with a cable channel that will get ratings.

Woooooo. One cable channel delivers real news for one hour a night and you rightwing nutjobs go crazy, don't you? Sorry, pal, you're a few years too late. Keith Olbermann has had the time to grow "Countdown" into the one TV newscast Democrats can watch without wretching, and it's become MSNBC's top-rated program. They're onto something.

Wow, jumping the gun a little bit there. You obvisously know nothing about Julius, as all his posts are like this. I don't know if he is a rightwing nut or not, but he said nothing in this thread to show he is, and going back to knowing who Julius is, I assure you he didn't start this post on political motives.

 

[jal41]

No---Fox News needs to go off of the air - now!!!

Microsoft still owns 18% of MSNBC TV, and 50% of the website. By the end of this year, Microsoft is suppost to divest the rest of it's ownership in MSNBC TV by the end of this year. At that time, it is expected that MSNBC will have a new name (I also wonder if the internet venture will be dead as well).

MSNBC is operated as a division of NBC News, and as such only relies on NBC affiliates. Fox has to use non-Fox stations because local Fox news operations are much smaller (with the exception of WAGA/Atlanta, KTVU/Oakland, and other heritage stations). If Fox and their affilaites had better local operations, they would love to not rely on the competition.

MSNBC is using web streams more so they don't have to buy expensive satellite time for the affiliates to use.

MSNBC lauched a few weeks before Fox News. The only reason Fox News is popular is because of its conservative bias. Republicans like to hear what is appealing to them, even if it is a lie, and that is why Fox News prospers. If they did not have a bias, they would be in the same state as MSNBC.

MSNBC will have to rebrand after Microsoft divests its portion. NBC Universal can have a clean slate to work with if they choose.

May God bless Keith Olbermann!

 

[searadiofreak]

Bigger question: do we need three cable news channels? Actually, my opinion is, YES! Two's company, but three is NOT a crowd, only makes the first two better.

NBC affiliate coverage...they could do worse. I've seen Fox and CNN jump around among local affiliates creating a complete and scrambled mess.

I think the more competition the better. Kinda like when McDonalds is alone at an intersection, then Burger King, Wendy's and Taco Bell move in. Suddenly, everyone is doing better business!

 

[KTN Corp]

MSNBC needs to go off the air because of 4 things. 1: The anchors are very bad.

...during the daytime. They are unknown like Lester Holt until he got on the Today Show. He has potential. I'd like him to replace Matt Lauer.

2: the news coverage in the daytime is not that good

Its too boring to watch. The Situation Room's music makes it lively.

3: MSNBC doesn't have access to non NBC TV stations feeds in the USA to use for breaking news coverage. CNN and FOX NEWS channel use multiple feeds from various TV stations from the same market where a breaking news story is happening, MSNBC doesn't. MSNBC uses the feeds of the NBC affiliates only and doesn't have that access to go the story if the NBC affiliate is not there to show live pictures of a story like CNN and FOX might be covering and sometimes, they can't get access to the satellite feed of an NBC station to dip into the affiliate's coverage and have to go to the NBC affiliate's website to get the live streaming video for breaking news coverage, sometimes.

Even Fox News used a feed from KPRC-TV (a NBC affiliate) on a breaking news story one evening at Bush Airport; something I thought was MSNBC's territory.

4: The ratings are very bad and will never improve.

The only time I watch MSNBC is watching reruns of Meet the Press on Sunday nights. It seems they use MSNBC to re-run those cheesy investigative reports and celebrity interviews most of the time.

 

[formeraa]

Bigger question: do we need three cable news channels? Actually, my opinion is, YES! Two's company, but three is NOT a crowd, only makes the first two better.

NBC affiliate coverage...they could do worse. I've seen Fox and CNN jump around among local affiliates creating a complete and scrambled mess.

I think the more competition the better. Kinda like when McDonalds is alone at an intersection, then Burger King, Wendy's and Taco Bell move in. Suddenly, everyone is doing better business!

As usual, searadiofreak is 100% CORRECT!!!

 

[Al Johnson]

MSNBC ain't perfect but that's no reason to say it "needs to go off the air." That's just ridiculous.

Their teleprompter readers come from the same cookie-cutter everybody uses. Young. Cute. Able to repeat what they see on the teleprompter or repeat the questions they hear in their ear plugs. How are any of them "not good?" They are all pretty interchangeable.

CNN has news co-op with local stations around the country, usually one per market. The station gets to use CNN stuff; CNN gets to use their stuff. Fox has terrestrial affiliates they can take stuff from. So has NBC. And there are other video news services any of them can use. To say MSNBC is at a disadvantage here is not true.

Ratings "will never improve:" Does somebody have a crystal ball? In fact, their ratings have been improving.

What has been working for MSNBC, and what they should do more of, is to become the anti-Fox; to counter program Fox's wing nut hosts with more folks like Obermann. Stephanie Miller did great in Imus' spot but apparently they are not considering her and are taking two steps backwards with GOP hack Scarborough.

I would like to know what other cable channels "Julius" thinks would be better and do better if they replaced MSNBC. Not that there's currently any shortage of bandwidth and a lot of other cable channels I would put on the list of those I could do without. First get rid of all the preachers, infomercials, shopping channels and music video channels and get back to me.

 

[JeeperOne]

Hi everyone:

4. Start doing half-hour news cycles like another cable news service

Umm....Somebody correct me if I am wrong here, but isn't that what a little known program called MSNBC Live does already?

Me thinks so, but could be wrong....

Cheers

 

[newsmark]

Fox, ABC and CBS joined together to create the Network News Service, which shares video among the three networks and affiliates who choose to join NNS. That's why you'll see an ABC or CBS station's video (or live feed) on Fox News.

NNS will not currently accept a station who's not a Fox, ABC or CBS affiliate, so NBC is left out in the cold.

CNN has lost all of the Fox O&Os and CBS O&Os that used to be affiliates, so they don't have as many stations to pull from as they used to. Just a few years ago, in some markets almost every station was a CNN affiliate. (Some non O&Os have also dropped CNN.)

I don't think NBC O&Os were ever affiliated with CNN, although I'm not 100% sure about that.

I'm not a big fan of Fox's talk shows (a.k.a. screaming matches), but I think they do a good job of providing news updates every hour of every day. It seems like every time I tune to MSNBC in prime time, at night or on the weekend, they're in some preproduced documentary-type show, while Fox is doing news.

 

[retrothoughts]

Why not combine MSNBC with CNBC? CNBC business programming can run from 5 am-7 pm weekdays, then MSNBC can run from 7 pm-5 am as well as 24 hours on weekends and holidays.

That way, you would free up a channel for cable systems to decide what to fill it with. Either that, or have NBC Universal buy into NFL Network as a minority owner, and get it pushed on to cable systems to replace the empty channel from which an MSNBC/CNBC merger would result.

 

[Nate Wesley]

They do need a name change; If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft no longer has a stake in the network, so the "MSNBC" name really make no sense.

As noted, Microsoft holds a minority stake in the network, and could sell its final ties. But that's eleven years worth of branding that would go down the drain. NBC Universal might very well name it 'NBC News Channel' someday, but not without some hesitation. Most already know that 'MSNBC' is a news channel programmed by NBC.

 

[Garrett]

MSNBC needs to go off the air because of 4 things. 1: The anchors are very bad. 2: the news coverage in the daytime is not that good and 3: MSNBC doesn't have access to non NBC TV stations feeds in the USA to use for breaking news coverage. CNN and FOX NEWS channel use multiple feeds from various TV stations from the same market where a breaking news story is happening, MSNBC doesn't. MSNBC uses the feeds of the NBC affiliates only and doesn't have that access to go the story if the NBC affiliate is not there to show live pictures of a story like CNN and FOX might be covering and sometimes, they can't get access to the satellite feed of an NBC station to dip into the affiliate's coverage and have to go to the NBC affiliate's website to get the live streaming video for breaking news coverage, sometimes. And 4: The ratings are very bad and will never improve. This channel needs to go off the air now and let cable systems replace it with a cable channel that will get ratings.

Geez, you could say that about any station you don't like.

Yup that's it, they have to go off the air now.

 

[chrish]

jal41 needs to get his head out of his a.. its suffocating his brain
Lefto commie socialists are so indoctrinated that the crap the media has been serving up all these years has been unbiased. When Fox came into place these wackos are so far to the left, when something is actually fair and balanced they see it as right wing. In their opinion conservative views should be banned altogether.
They love free speech as long as it theirs.

 

[rockhitsradio]

I only watch the "Lockup" series and "Msnbc Investigates" show!