General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Regarding MSNBC [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)on their couches when they aren't in church.
Running taped programming requires one guy in a booth pushing buttons. There are no studio cameramen, no lighting people, no makeup and wardrobe people, no directors, no producers, no "talent," no fact checkers, no nobody. The lights are off. A guy sits in a booth, he punches buttons and he makes sure the signal is going out. What could be easier, and cheaper? Dozens of salaries, or one?
Also, the Prison Shows grab a lot of right wing viewers--along with viewers in (irony alert) minimum security prisons!!! People like it because if they can't find anything to watch, they flip over to "LOCKUP" and pat themselves on the back that they aren't doing time in the Big House, or something.
It helps their ratings bottom line, AND it's cheap to run--it generates profit for them so they can afford to pay Maddow, Ed, et. al.
Here is an article that explains why they have kept it on after all these years--it is a "ratings juggernaut:"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/msnbcs-lockup-documentary-or-reality-tv/2011/06/03/gIQAQ8853H_story.html
Lockup just doesnt need help, says MSNBCs long-form vice president, Scott Hooker. It has proven its something that can succeed on its own. People know it is there.
On the noisy MSNBC/Fox News/CNN battlefield, MSNBC wins on this one front. The show has become such a phenomenon that its schedulers cant help running it hour upon hour upon hour.
For the year to date, in the valued 25-to-54 age group, Lockup averages 263,000 viewers, compared with, for example, 189,000 for MSNBCs The Chris Matthews Show.
In Washington, repeats of Lockup draw more 25-to-54-year-olds than live newscasts on the other cable channels. In the MSNBC fly zone, where cuss words from Mark Halperin create dust storms, the profane aggression of Lockup provides a reliable ratings uplift. And Lockup has morphed into next-generation iterations: Lockup: Raw (a making-of series), Lockup: World Tour (foreign jails) and Life After Lockup (post-release)......The Lockup Facebook page lit up on Saturday, May 7, when the series was bumped for Osama bin Laden coverage.
The idiot is dead, fumed one fan, put my show on........On the other hand, when Cairo erupted one day this winter, Fox News and CNN continued their live coverage through the following Saturday night. MSNBC flipped to Lockup and attracted twice the viewers.
Caught in the middle is MSNBCs Hooker. He wants to deliver the show to the fans he knows are expecting it while deferring to news decisions. There are difficult calls to be made, he says. Sometimes we feel great. Other times, not so great. It can be tricky.
The phenomenon defies MSNBCs business model: a line-extension amortizing the expense of its NBC parent. NBC doesnt even generate Lockup. Los Angeles-based 44 Blue Productions handles all filming and post-editing. (44 Blue was in town this year for its reality pilot Potomac Fever.) MSNBCs reliance on 44 Blue represents the greatest amount of outsourcing by a news channel in TV today, possibly ever.