NEW YORK (AP)
-- As he returns to run the NBC News Group, Andy Lack faces one of the
same puzzles he tried to solve a decade and a half ago: how to make
MSNBC work.
While he was gone, MSNBC changed
from traditional news to a political network with a liberal lens.
Now
that it is mired in a ratings slump, Lack's mandate as chairman will be
figuring out if MSNBC needs a complete overhaul or a sharpening of its
mission.
The current picture is seriously
ugly. Through early March, Chris Hayes' viewership at 8 p.m. on weekdays
was down 23 percent from last year, Rachel Maddow was off 24 percent
and Lawrence O'Donnell down 26 percent. Among the 25-to-54-year-old
demographic that is the basis for advertising sales, the prime-time
lineup lost nearly half its audience. Daytime isn't much better.
Fatigue
is natural for fans of any presidential administration in its sixth
year, and liberals are traditionally less loyal to political talk media
than conservatives.
"Like political groups
that raise money, they do better when they have something to rail
against," said Mark Feldstein, veteran television journalist and
professor at the University of Maryland.
Phil
Griffin, MSNBC president, has lately sought to broaden MSNBC's outlook
by taking on a greater variety of stories, even hiring a food
correspondent, and there's been some uptick in the ratings the past few
weeks. He changed the daytime lineup, ditching opinionated programs
hosted by Ronan Farrow and Joy-Ann Reid and establishing a news-focused
bloc with Jose Diaz-Balart, Andrea Mitchell and Thomas Roberts.
Griffin
has run MSNBC since 2006. Normally, executives at networks with his
ratings are looking for another job, especially with a new boss coming
in. But he and Lack have a long relationship, and Griffin has credited
Lack with kick-starting his career by assigning him to supervise NBC
News coverage of the O.J. Simpson case.
The shift in focus during the day has led some fans to fear MSNBC may abandon its liberal focus altogether.
That's
very unlikely. Despite the ratings, analyst SNL Kagan predicts MSNBC
will earn $509 million in revenue this year. While that's below Fox News
Channel ($2.18 billion) and CNN ($1.16 billion), that would still be
slightly up from $501 million in 2014, Kagan said.
The
financial health is largely due to long-term deals with cable and
satellite operators to carry MSNBC, made when the network sold itself as
a counterbalance to Fox News, said Derek Baine, Kagan analyst. Bad
ratings depress advertising prices, and while they would hurt MSNBC's
future if they persist, the advertising is not as important as the
carriage deals.
Considering Lack spent much of
his first go-round at NBC News struggling to find an identity for
MSNBC, the idea of searching for a new one is no doubt unappealing.
Shifting
to straight news would be even harder because MSNBC is no longer seen
as a primary news source. Its viewership doesn't go up much during big
news events, certainly not like CNN and Fox.
While conservatives like
getting news from Fox, liberals don't feel the same way about MSNBC. A
Quinnipiac University poll of 1,286 registered voters a month ago found
29 percent of people said Fox was their most trusted news source,
compared to 7 percent for MSNBC. Even among Democrats, more than twice
as many people said they trusted CNN more for news than MSNBC.
To many fans, MSNBC's weakness isn't that it's liberal. It's that the network is boring.
"The
solution is not that `we need more news' or that `we need to alter the
political viewpoint,' but what does the content of the shows look like,"
said Keith Olbermann, former MSNBC prime-time host. "Do not be afraid
to make good television. And in Rachel, Phil Griffin, and Andy Lack,
they've got three people in place who've already done that there."
Olbermann
single-handedly lurched MSNBC to the left during President George W.
Bush's second term when his angry commentary attracted a loyal audience.
He had the passion, Maddow the quietly analytical mind and together
they formed a potent one-two punch.
After Olbermann left, MSNBC set about modeling its lineup after Maddow, its Rhodes scholar and highest-rated personality.
Liberal
in outlook, MSNBC's programming approach is often conservative.
Watching MSNBC can feel like a hidden camera picking up a discussion in
the faculty lounge. Fox viewers often feel like they've stumbled upon a
street brawl.
Setting politics aside, which is more fun to watch?
Many
liberals feel MSNBC reflexively defends President Barack Obama when it
could be challenging him, said Jeff Cohen, a former MSNBC producer and
now an Ithaca College professor.
The network needs more energy and
independence, he said.
Olbermann said the
network needs an infusion of new ideas and new blood. Lack's skill is in
spotting and managing talent, often from unexpected places, "and I am
the largest example of that," he said.
Feldstein
said it would be unwise for MSNBC to throw away an identity built up
over a decade, certainly not with a presidential election year looming.
"I
think Lack will tinker with MSNBC," he said. "He'll bring in new hosts,
he'll try to punch it up. He'll add a bit more charisma and maybe a
little bit more substance, wait for 2016 to bring the numbers up and
declare victory."
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Follow David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder
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