Either MSNBC is in the midst of an identity crisis or their corporate overlords have finally started to crush the bit of 'liberalness' important to the network's survival. What the fck are yall doing?
MSNBC has canceled the "Ed Show" — one of the best shows on the channel — along with "Now with Alex Wagner", and "The Cycle".
Before that, MSNBC canceled "The Reid Report" and "Ronan Farrow Daily". They even moved the "Ed Show" to weekends temporarily which also caused it to take a ratings slide.
What's worse is they did this right before the 2016 elections have started to heat up. Maybe that's why they needed to do it now and not wait? But all of a sudden, they pull this massacre with the excuse of transitioning to "hard news"? I don't believe in coincidences that big.
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Maybe MSNBC doesn't know who they should be targeting. MSNBC seemed in my opinion like they wanted to be kinda, sorta progressive… and kinda in the middle…. and kinda like CNN… and kinda like a reverse version of Fox News.
No goddamit! WHO are you gonna be, MSNBC? Figure it out and stick to it. You're leaving behind people who have watched the network for years.
Shows like "The Reid Report", "Ed Show" and "Now with Alex Wagner" provided hard news coverage of events and stories important to people. But I guess they weren't kissing enough Republican ass to make it "objective" enough to be called "hard news".
Guess which show MSNBC didn't cancel in an effort to switch to "hard news": the conservative-leaning "Morning Joe", hosted by Joe Scarborough and Zbigniew Brzezinski's offspring, Mika Brzezinski.
Comcast became the biggest cable provider in the U.S. That means you can sign up to get programming from Comcast while in the same breath they own the place that creates said programming, like MSNBC. Isn't that ridiculous?
I have my suspicions that Comcast may have started to drop MSNBC from its lineup in certain areas a long time ago to skew the rating. There was a post on Democraticunderground.com way back in 2009 where someone was complaining Comcast dropped MSNBC from their cable lineup.
After making their final acquisitions, in my Constitutionally protected opinion, it was just a matter of time before they started to look for ways/excuses to gut liberal programming.
Remember, these people control whether or not MSNBC will be carried on Comcast. So they can drop it allegedly for low ratings from their available channels when they feel like it. That means less people will be watching because they can't get the channel. And they hypothetically can use those low ratings as an excuse to cancel shows at MSNBC.
Liberals need to invest in their own network(s). Al Gore started with CurrenTV but he caught the billionaire-bug and sold it to Aljazeera. All hell has been breaking loose for him and that deal ever since. They may STILL be in litigation after suing each other. One thing is clear: the ratings are more awful than anyone could've imagined and certainly more awful than they were when they were still CurrenTV.
Liberals have to make it priority to own their own networks and shows. The owners of Fox news understand that. Conservative media elites understand that. Why don't liberals seem to get it?
In addition, when liberals do purchase their own networks and create their own shows, enough time must be alloted to allow the network to grow. You can't expect to pull Fox News-type ratings when your network isn't on basic cable in many places AND you don't have adequate management running it.
The people who run Fox understand the importance of giving their right-wing lunatics people a platform for which to spread their hate views, however small.
It's about time liberals figure out how to protect the small number of them who're left on cable television.
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Related:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109×37426
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/msnbc-cancels-ed-show-cycle-alex-wagner-1201553699/