Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-25 Thread Kevin M. 
On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 11:51 AM, PGage  wrote:

>
>
> But capitalism is not about making a profit, it is about continually
> increasing profits. A real news cable channel could make a small, stable
> profit, but not the kinds of margins the mega-corps demand for their
> shareholders.
>
> Your point is, sadly, valid. Such greed is what killed the whole "500
channels" promise of cable TV back in the 90s, when we were told there'd be
unique programing for every individual taste and interest. But even though
a certain percentage of the population liked learning how things work and
liked watching classic movies, not enough did, so The Learning Channel and
American Movie Classics became Tlc and Amc (I don't capitalize all the
letters since their own branding indicates they are no longer
abbreviations).

It's bad enough we don't have the flying cars promised to us decades ago,
but to have to contend with pandering networks all trying to spend as
little as possible to attract as many eyeballs as possible (looking at you,
Sharknado 3), the 21st century has not lived up to expectations.

There will come a day (hopefully not for a long time) when mankind
experiences a disaster that dwarfs 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and Oklahoma City
combined. Perhaps terrorism, perhaps the result of mother nature, the
disaster will require thoughtful insight and analysis. The public will want
answers... but there will be nobody to give them. Gone are the days when we
have news anchors or reporters we can trust. For that matter, we now pride
ourselves as a nation that elects "regular guys" instead of leaders or
experts, so none of the "drinking buddies" in high office could go on TV to
offer any substantive reassurance (after all, when the guy at the end of
the bar tells you everything will be OK, you don't believe him). The
networks will send people to report live from the scene, but all that will
do is point a camera at a situation we still know nothing about, and any
police statements offered at the scene won't be trustes because nobody
trusts law enforcement anymore. We'll go online in search of support, but
only find inaccurate Wikipedia entries and Buzzfeed articles about the Top
Ten worst things to ever happen to humanity.

But we will have Keith O to tell us who the Worst Person in the World is,
and we will have Anderson Cooper spend 10 seconds between stories about
Kardashians and Hiltons to "Keep 'em honest."  The Daily Show will exist to
mock the lack of journalistic integrity, but that won't help. The network
newscasts will offer inarticulate summaries, urging viewers to head to
their respective dot-coms for additional information, but when viewers do
that, all they find is a video link and transcript of the same inarticulate
summaries. Most will absorb all this media and assume due to the
oversaturation that they have been informed, never realizing it was all a
cycle of babbling incoherence.

Happy Saturday everybody!

-- 
Kevin M. (RPCV)

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-25 Thread PGage 
On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 11:26 AM, K.M. Richards 
wrote:

> I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find you were right about that,
> Kevin.
>
> Yet NBCCastiversal (or whatever their corporate name is now) can't get
> their minds around the idea that a loose cannon can attract eyeballs if it
> goes off as expected.  I phrase it that way because both in MSNBC's and
> Current's case, they overreacted to Keith being Keith.  It's not like they
> didn't know this is the way he is, because this is the way he's always been.
>

Kevin said a real news channel could make a profit - I also would not be
surprised if that were true. For years (in my view, up till Roone Arlidge
got his grubby little hands on it) network news was not expected to make a
profit (William Paley told his news reporters in the early 1960’s that they
shouldn’t be worried about costs:  “I have Jack Benny to make money” (
http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-transformation-of-network-news/).
With the arrival of flash and then big corporate takeover of broadcast
networks and cable, news was transformed into a profit center. I should
think there is a reasonable mid point, where news could make a small and
sustainable profit without whoring itself out much more than a traditional
paper's entertainment section and brief horoscope.

But capitalism is not about making a profit, it is about continually
increasing profits. A real news cable channel could make a small, stable
profit, but not the kinds of margins the mega-corps demand for their
shareholders. So I would be extremely surprised if a real news channel
could exist in the current environment, unless we somehow had the balls to
fund an all news PBS channel substantially underwritten, but not
controlled, by taxpayer money.

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-25 Thread K.M. Richards 
I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find you were right about that, 
Kevin.

Yet NBCCastiversal (or whatever their corporate name is now) can't get 
their minds around the idea that a loose cannon can attract eyeballs if it 
goes off as expected.  I phrase it that way because both in MSNBC's and 
Current's case, they overreacted to Keith being Keith.  It's not like they 
didn't know this is the way he is, because this is the way he's always been.

On Friday, July 24, 2015 at 2:02:23 PM UTC-7, Kevin M. (RPCV) wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 12:54 PM, K.M. Richards  > wrote:
>
>> Great minds and all that ... I just made the suggestion about rehiring 
>> Olbermann on an industry message board.
>>
>> The phrase I used was "he's always going to be the way he is, live with 
>> it and defend him instead of trying to keep him on a short leash".
>>
>> No doubt that's the same argument FoxNews uses to keep O'Reilly on the 
> air 
>
>
> -- 
> Kevin M. (RPCV)
>  

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-24 Thread Kevin M. 
On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Henry Fung  wrote:

> MSNBC is going to run into the problem that doomed it when it was
> "America's NewsChannel": people in this country don't watch rolling news.
> They might get some more ratings for a short period of time but in a year,
> their ratings will be lower than when they were the liberal antidote to Fox
> News. It's a shame because in countries like Britain, rolling news does
> quite well. Fortunately many markets can get BBC World if they want to
> watch a real news channel, but I would like to see something like BBC News
> 24 geared for America (the old Headline News was close, but not quite).
>
> People in this country have never been given the choice. As you said,
Headline News was close but not quite (canning Jeanne Moss would've
helped). Even early CNN peppered its news with Showbiz Tonight and Larry
King. Somebody create a newschannel fully-funded with bureaus all around
the world staffed with experts and honest-to-God journalists and I suspect
people would take notice... maybe not as many people will take as much
notice of it as Shark Week, but a news channel does not require a majority
to make a profit.


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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-24 Thread Henry Fung 
MSNBC is going to run into the problem that doomed it when it was
"America's NewsChannel": people in this country don't watch rolling news.
They might get some more ratings for a short period of time but in a year,
their ratings will be lower than when they were the liberal antidote to Fox
News. It's a shame because in countries like Britain, rolling news does
quite well. Fortunately many markets can get BBC World if they want to
watch a real news channel, but I would like to see something like BBC News
24 geared for America (the old Headline News was close, but not quite).

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 12:54 PM, K.M. Richards 
wrote:

> Great minds and all that ... I just made the suggestion about rehiring
> Olbermann on an industry message board.
>
> The phrase I used was "he's always going to be the way he is, live with it
> and defend him instead of trying to keep him on a short leash".
>
> On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 8:53:57 AM UTC-7, PGage wrote:
>>
>> I think I would give Williams a flagship newshour, bite the bullet and
>> give Olbermann an hour, throw some money at some mid-profile ABC or CNN
>> news person to jump ship, and sign some politico with ties to Obama or
>> Hillary to a 2 year deal.
>>
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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-24 Thread Kevin M. 
On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 12:54 PM, K.M. Richards 
wrote:

> Great minds and all that ... I just made the suggestion about rehiring
> Olbermann on an industry message board.
>
> The phrase I used was "he's always going to be the way he is, live with it
> and defend him instead of trying to keep him on a short leash".
>
> No doubt that's the same argument FoxNews uses to keep O'Reilly on the air


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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-24 Thread K.M. Richards 
Great minds and all that ... I just made the suggestion about rehiring 
Olbermann on an industry message board.

The phrase I used was "he's always going to be the way he is, live with it 
and defend him instead of trying to keep him on a short leash".

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 8:53:57 AM UTC-7, PGage wrote:
>
> I think I would give Williams a flagship newshour, bite the bullet and 
> give Olbermann an hour, throw some money at some mid-profile ABC or CNN 
> news person to jump ship, and sign some politico with ties to Obama or 
> Hillary to a 2 year deal.
>

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-23 Thread PGage 
On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Bob Jersey  wrote:

> For a weekday effort, for which room is made in a reported purge of
> daytime to be unveiled today (23) to staff by Andy Lack, per Lisa D
> 
> (link).
>
> Todd would still host *Meet The Press*... much as Jake Tapper and George
> S. on other nets have double roles...
>


You know you are in trouble when *Chuck Todd* is the guy you look to rescue
your dying ratings with his charisma.

Actually though, I would not mind having Andy Lack's job right now. With an
election cycle heating up, MSNBC's ratings are bound to increase over the
next 18 months. Without a raging Democratic Primary, they will not benefit
as much as FN will, at least until next summer, but there will be a rise
out of interest in Hillary, and whatever mischief Bernie is able to get
into. Also, MSNBC is so very bad right now, that even marginal moves (like
bringing in Todd) will help. He needs to clean the decks of the freaks and
clowns that populate his roster, and bring in people with either skills or
profile. I think I would give Williams a flagship newshour, bite the bullet
and give Olbermann an hour, throw some money at some mid-profile ABC or CNN
news person to jump ship, and sign some politico with ties to Obama or
Hillary to a 2 year deal.

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[TV orNotTV] Chuck Todd reportedly back to MSNBC

2015-07-23 Thread Bob Jersey 
For a weekday effort, for which room is made in a reported purge of daytime 
to be unveiled today (23) to staff by Andy Lack, per Lisa D 
 (link).

Todd would still host *Meet The Press*... much as Jake Tapper and George S. 
on other nets have double roles...

B

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