"Meet the Press" hits 20-year ratings low

[AngryOldDem]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/meet-the-press-ratings-low_n_1578306.html


"Meet the Press" just hit a twenty-year low for viewers in the key 25-54 demographic.

<<<The NBC News program — which is typically the top Sunday public affairs show — drew 2.46 million total viewers and 687,000 viewers ages 25-54 on Sunday, according to Nielsen. The demo audience was its smallest for a regular telecast since July 1992.

Meanwhile, ABC News' “This Week” took the top spot in the demo, with 700,000 viewers. It was the first time the show beat "Meet the Press" and CBS News' "Face the Nation" in two years.<<

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Either it's time to junk the show or bring it in for a complete overhaul, starting with David Gregory. I'm finding that if I'm watching TV on Sunday morning, other than CBS's "Sunday Morning," it's either Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry, with perhaps "Face the Nation".

[rfranklin]

1. It has become another Republican propaganda show...

and that is not hyperbole, the statistics on their guest list prove it.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

3. Historically, wasn't this one of the most balanced news programs on the air?

When you lose that, it becomes an echo chamber, and people tend to stop watching.

[uponit7771]

27. +1

[annabanana]

36. It had an excellent reputation for a while..

Now it is dining out on stale glory.

[Arkana]

2. Good. Maybe it'll die a slow painful death.

[TheKentuckian]

5. +1

[Baitball Blogger]

39. I'd rather it was quick and painful.

[Romulox]

4. It will be a minor shock to the system when one of the big 3 axes its news department altogether...

Nobody who wants to be informed turns to network tv as anything more than a minor adjunct to their real sources of information.

The world has changed.

[WI_DEM]

6. When the network Sunday news shows get balanced then maybe I'll watch...

statistics indicate that most of the guests a white, male and conservative.

[myrna minx]

7. Who watches "Meet the Republican Party's Stenographer" anymore?

[riverwalker]

13. good one

LOL

[uponit7771]

28. lol, good one

[KharmaTrain]

8. News TV Is In The Doldrums...

Maybe its a syptom of the polarized nature of American politics and the corporate media's brazen attempts to exploit it that is turning people off...literally.

Ratings at the cables are way down from where they were 2 and 4 years ago...faux taking the biggest hit and chicken noodle nuze battling home shopping for the bottom of the ratings barrel. The networks have been hurting as well...the internets have become the political junkies first choice and the Sunday shows no longer break news but are purely platforms for talking points from not only the politicos but the moderators and talking heads as well.

MTP with Stretch is lamer than it was under the late Timmeh...reinforcing the "conventional wisdom" as seen inside the beltway...a major disconnect.

[Enrique]

14. I bet it's related to low approval ratings for Congress

I know my feeling about those Sunday shows is similar to how I feel about politics in general, they're all totally bought. It's so perfect that the Cory Booker thing happened on MTP.

[KharmaTrain]

18. Low Approval For All Things Politics...

Television has always been the great escape machine...and today's fad of reality shows is another example of how people turn to the tube to get away from their troubles. This is especially the case these days with so many people either unemployed, underemployed or just barely making ends meet. The political landscape in general is so fetid it turns off far more than it turns on.

I long ago jetisoned the Sunday shows...it's manufactured "news"...all staged and bought. Might as well watch "professional" wrestling.

Cheers...

[Vincent89]

9. Spam deleted by Violet_Crumble (MIR Team)

[Blue_Tires]

10. NBC execs will read this and think this means they need to move farther right...

[truebrit71]

23. Exactly...fucking dumbasses...

[uponit7771]

30. +1

[butterfly77]

35. Exactly..

[mfcorey1]

11. Get rid of the current host and the show will improve 100%. nt

[exboyfil]

21. Yes and I know the replacement

Rachel Maddow. Currently as a guest she is not given the opportunity to speak. She is the only talking head I can stand to listen to. She does get snarkey sometimes, but overall she is by far the fairest and smartest talking head out there. I think she could improve the show immensely. Also NBC better consider her future - this would be a great opportunity for her to expand her range.

[truebrit71]

24. That would be awesome, and the only way I'd watch that show...

...Gregory's rightwing cock-gobbling is beginning to get old...

[uponit7771]

31. +1

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

12. how can this be?

They have bookcases on the set. Full of books, too.

[HereSince1628]

15. I haven't watched those shows regularly in a long time

I mostly gave up Sunday morning 'news' when Charles Kuralt (sp?) gave up Sunday Morning.

When I realized that DU covers by Friday at 5pm all the opinions that will be discussed 36 hours later I was completely liberated from the network talking heads. It gave me a chance to get familiar with all the important things on cable... like the Yellowstone Supervolcano, and Ancient Aliens, and Locked-up Abroad.

[ellie]

16. I used to love to watch the

Sunday shows until the Clinton blow job debacle. Then they all became unwatchable.

[rtracey]

17. David Gregory

He is terrible as moderator of this show. I used to watch every Sunday, but now, it is becoming a Republican haven. Greagory is too mamby pamby. He is afraid to push and ask the tough questions, he sure ain't no Tim Russert. Russert was relentless at asking the tough questions....

[truebrit71]

25. Hahahahahahaha!!!!

You said "Tim Russert" and "tough question" in the same sentence....!! Man that's some funny shit!!!

[uponit7771]

32. Russert would at least FRAME the questions to get an answer Gregory could care less!!

....it wasn't Russerts personality people liked it was his framing.

Also, Russert would at LEAST try to look non partisan....Gregory on the other hand could care less.


The guest list tells it all.

[blackmamba09]

19. Meet the press is a republican snake hole with David Gregory guarding the entrance.

I don't watch "Meet the De-pressed" I watch MHP at 10:00 Not only is she nice to look at she is not a republican condom like David Gregory

[Enrique]

20. .

[UTUSN]

22. Even back with G.E.RUSSERT it was "Meet the One Non-Journalist Operative" n/t

[uponit7771]

26. GREGORY IS HORRIBLE!! He's a hack, an obvious one and loves to invite mostly KKKons

[malaise]

29. Who the fugg wants to watch ReTHUGs and Hack Gregory

on Sunday morning?
Fugg em!

[uponit7771]

34. +1, one can see in objective statics that the guest list leans right

[KurtNYC]

33. 2.46 mil is a good number, the problem, as NBC and the industry sees it, is the demo is too old

What this article is saying is that although the audience is very good sized for TV, especially Sunday morning TV, it isn't an audience that sells well. The demo of the show is mostly over the age of 54 but they say this in a tricky way: 2.46 mil minus the 687,000 is 1,773,000 and there aren't many kids in that number so basically the audience for MTP is about 70% aged 54 years or older and they can't sell many ads for that demo.

The customer for NBC is their advertisers and this article is written for those customers. For the ABC show, This Week, they don't even mention the mature part of the audience, only the 700,000 that are 25-54.

The Sunday shows don't deserve the audience that has been loyal to them IMHO.

[uponit7771]

38. The demo is old cause that's what they show; old white men....mostly, they have VERY VERY

...few incentives to be diverse in their guest list....money isn't an incentive to the already rich

[KurtNYC]

41. and also at some point these shows stopped attracting younger viewers to

fill the ranks. The Sunday shows are very generational. TV news in generation skews mature. Even Jon Stewart has a mature demo and he is kind of the lower edge of the age spread for talking heads news shows (and TDS is NOT technically a "news" show).

Seems like the view of the big 3 networks is that these legacy Sunday shows are not re-inventable.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

37. Is L'il Luke ready to take over yet?

I think that's what it's really going to take for the NBC news execs to finally get their hands on the negatives.

[spanone]

40. 2 words...david. gregory.

[Zorro]

42. Bringing back the old format would be a 100% improvement

Meet the Press once actually described the program's format. Three or four reporters would question a key policymaker for virtually the entire program, and it wasn't a convivial everyone sitting-around-the-table environment -- there was a distinct physical separation between reporters and policymaker, and the questions were probing.

Tim Russert corrupted the program, and it hasn't yet recovered.