Steve Irwin coverage: The Ozzie Diana or slow news day?

Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail (great book, by the way) preaches the simple gospel that Niches Matter. If you cover television for a living, you know this already.

And it provides one way to view the avalanche of coverage of Steve "Crikey" "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin's death on Labor Day, that is spilling into today.

The idea is that niche audiences are smaller but more robust than mass audiences.  More people watched "Gilligan's Island" growing up, but because we had little choice in our TV viewing back then, many of us watched because it was the least objectionable choice. Of that passionate fans are not made.

But Irwin, appearing on a cable channel, is a niche favorite, and so people are much more passionate about him -- so passionate, in fact, that they brought the Animal Planet message board to its knees. (Maureen Ryan's comment board is off the charts, too.)

On the other hand ... so what?

If this was simply a slow news day, as Chip Franklin observed today on WBAL, then we have no meaningful way to measure whether Irwin's death by stingray was a huge story or not. It may have been a minor obit that was writ large in order to fill a gaping news hole.

It's a sure sign of our jaded culture that a day when 33 Iraqi men's bodies are left strewn throughout Baghdad can be called a "slow news day," but I agree with Chip. I'm not sure you have this outpouring of sympathy if it's even a day later and we have Katie's first Katiecast to cover.

Which, if you'll excuse me now ...