Olbermann, Maddow and why everybody's missing the boat on MSNBC

One of the valuable insights in the new book by Rory O'Connor and Aaron Cutler called Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio is how even the most loathsome right-wing talk show host, if he or she is popular, has a peculiar genius that almost nobody else in our culture has. "Entertaining people with strong opinions about the news (without actually reporting or gathering any) sounds easy," the authors write, adding that while "anyone can do it, very few people can do it well."

Keith Olbermann is not a right-wing talk show host, but he shares this gift with Rush, O'Reilly and all the others he loves to rip on his program. And it's therefore no surprise that he is the person most responsible for helping Rachel Maddow, an all-but-unknown radio personality a year ago, become one of the breakout stars of the 2008 campaign season, thanks to her nearly nightly appearances on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Clearly KO saw a kindred spirit in Maddow, who is, like he is, entertaining, full of strong opinions, yet almost endlessly watchable and listenable. She's even supplanted Allison Stewart at the show's substitute anchor when Keith is gone.

(Hey, did I mention that I wrote what appears to be the first mainstream profile of Rachel Maddow outside the LGBT press? Unfortunately it was printed last weekend, when no one was much in the mood for talking about MSNBC. But here it is — it's actually a dual profile with Chuck Todd, a rising star at NBC News).

As you may have read, KO got embroiled in another controversy last week, before the death of his colleague Tim Russert. He named CBS anchor (formerly NBC personality) Katie Couric a Worst Person for comments she made at a luncheon in her honor. Couric believed that the media attacks on Hillary Clinton were especially savage and blamed HRC's defeat in the primaries at least in part on sexist media coverage. About the charge of media sexism Olbermann said: "A little Kool-Aid-ish, but it's her opinion and she's entitled to it. What followed she was not entitled to." As TVNewser reported:

Couric talked about a "prominent member of the commentariat" who said he "found it hard to be objective when it came to Obama." "That's your job," the CBS News anchor said, then suggested he "find another line of work."

Couric, said Olbermann, not only got a key fact wrong but she misrepresented her source. He was NBC's Lee Cowan, who covered the Obama campaign and who (quoting KO) "if she had bothered to examine the context of his remark, was speaking with refreshing honesty" about how the excitement of Obamamania and the near-cult of personality surrounding the nominee "challenged a reporter to be especially vigilant in separating the hype from the news."

Olbermann said it was "obvious" that by leaving NBC, Katie Couric had already abandoned the standard that she'd accused Cowan of abandoning. Let's go to the tape:

Now, if there is a problem with KO's attacks in general, it's not that the tone is too strident or the spittle flies too hard. I think most viewers he wants watching "Countdown" have pretty good news/opinion receptors. It is that Olbermann sometimes doesn't edit himself for his own good. People didn't really notice this problem when he was attacking the right, except for a few hardcore haters, but it has now come up three times in recent weeks since he took on Hillary Clinton and her surrogates. The New Yorker even took notice, in this article also cursed with unfortunate timing that came out this weekend.

The first time was a rant against HRC's unfortunate comment about RFK's assassination, which even friendly observers thought was over-the-top for Keith. The second time, the attack poodles pounced on a line in an anti-Bush Special Comment that sounded like Olbermann was referring to most of the military as "cold-blooded killers." A next-day clarification by KO seemed to have the opposite effect, drawing attention to his reckless choice of words (New Yorker correspondent Peter Boyer didn't help KO's cause by reporting that his original choice of words was even more reckless).

But the contretemps with Couric may have hurt KO the most, because of his decision to raise the wet noodle of media sexism a second time in his commentary, the better to lash Couric with. It was a gratuitous hit and one that wound up giving critics of all political stripes an excuse to go after him. Had Olbermann simply left Lee Cowan alone to respond by himself, the result would have been yet another case of Poor Katie crying chauvinism as the reason behind her career cul-de-sac.

Because I watch "Countdown" and equate having to watch "CBS Evening News" with a certain scene from "A Clockwork Orange," I naturally saw the controversy from KO's view: Couric had no business ripping Cowan. But Rachel Sklar and Jake Tapper and a number of other critics saw it another way. And now that this original blog post has sat for nearly a week (I pulled it five minutes after it went live because I got the word Russert had died), I've had a chance to think it over, and I've decided Olbermann has no one to blame for this interpretation than himself. If Couric is "entitled" to her view, then don't use it 30 seconds later as evidence that she's become a hack.

In one sense, even a misfire like the Couric case demonstrates a simple talk-radio rule: As long as you keep talking about him, Keith Olbermann is loving it. He is loving it in the way that Rush Limbaugh loves it, for the simple reason that people are saying "Rush Limbaugh said" when they could be saying "Bill O'Reilly said" (by the way, another revelation of O'Connor's and Cutler's book: a surprising number of right-wing talk show hosts despise Bill-O).

I'll bet he even loved it when Howard Rosenberg, once one of the country's pre-eminent TV critics, emerged from his crypt to write a column about Olbermann suggesting darkly that KO might be "the future of news," based apparently on some reporting he did at the gym. Rosenberg's column might have had a little more bite if he'd asked that question three years ago, as Tim Goodman did, or two years ago as Phil Rosenthal and yours truly did.

Sorry, Howard, but that future is pretty much here already, what with everyone under the age of 40 getting their news online and then turning on the TV to have the Stewart-Colbert hour break it down. Expand that age range to under-50s and you get a lot of new MSNBC viewers, lured there by Olbermann, whose "Countdown" has effectively caught up to "The O'Reilly Factor" in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic, the only one big-money advertisers really care about.

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And that brings us to the story I think the media is missing in its reporting on MSNBC. I found it remarkable that Peter Boyer could write 6,500 words on the subject of Keith Olbermann and MSNBC and not once use the word "demographics." There are two mentions of "ratings" in his story (though one is a reference to, um, Couric's), and Boyer dutifully reports that "Countdown" makes money for MSNBC, a rarity. But he doesn't seem curious as to why it makes money.

It makes money because, despite being trounced in the overall ratings by O'Reilly, the number of viewers ages 25 to 54 who watch "Olbermann" is almost as large as that same demographic that tunes into O'Reilly. Study this chart from my friends at TVbythenumbers.com and it's obvious that what happened earlier this month — when a weekly average of Olbermann's demo beat O'Reilly's demo for the first time, albeit a 4-day week — was no fluke. By Election Day, it is entirely possible that MSNBC will be running promos touting "Countdown" as the number one show in prime time. And you know what? As far as the advertising community is concerned, they'll be right.

Young people drive the media business, and MSNBC is doing a better job of driving younger viewers to its prime time lineup than CNN or Fox. That's money.

I, too, used to ask the question, "Is Keith Olbermann the future of TV news?" But now I realize the answer: Viewers younger than Grandma are the future of TV news. And right now, Olbermann — part "SportsCenter" anchor, part "Bob and Ray Show," part Murrow seance — thinks he has the formula to keep pulling in those viewers. When his demos go into decline, we can talk about how he should've left Katie Couric alone, but for now, it's working for him.

It doesn't hurt, as I said in my story — did I mention I wrote this story? — that Rachel Maddow, 30-something, gay and geeky, appears on his show every night, and that he can call upon another young rising star at NBC News in Chuck Todd.

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Related:

• Young, geeky and hot: Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow are rising stars at NBC
• Maddow talks to TV Barn

Comments

[Bill G]

Aaron, thanks for the shout out. I think the real question about Countdown ratings is if Olbermann can sustain his surge past the general election when the appetite for politics & ideology is likely to cool considerably.

His increase that we show in our long term chart is considerable, but we've only got charted data back to Nov 2007, so almost our entire period was during the heat of the Democratic primary battles.

[Murmaster]

How can Olbermann last when he interviews the same three guests everynight? Milbank, Maddow, Alter, Wolffe. Olbermann says, "Thanks for your input folks, and for agreeing with me for the last four years." Olbermann is an intellectual coward.

(One, two, three .... four. But your point's well taken.--AB)

[Jason S]

Sorry, Aaron, I'm going to have to disagree about Rachel Maddow. I watched last night's Countdown and had to turn it off in the middle. I would at least like some pretense that the show is about news and not just about partisan axe-grinding, but the Maddow segments seem to be little more than liberal versions of the same knee-jerk, fact-free crud you see and hear on conservative outlets. Maddow's "pedigree" from Air America doesn't help matters on that score, either.

If Keith wants "Countdown" to literally be "O'Reilly Factor" from the other side of the aisle, I guess that's fine -- but I don't want to watch it. I love "Countdown" when it's news, but when it devolves into one big liberal conspiracy-fest, even I get turned off.

[Jason]

Hi Aaron,
When it comes to Keith, its all about guilty pleasure for me. Actually, I usually watch Keith's repeat at 9 then flip to Bill-O at 10 for the other side. That's real fair and balanced. ;)But seriously, please lay off on how wonderful MSNBC has been. I mean how much politics can one person take in a day? Eventually this stuff will wear thin. I have a feeling by about September that it will become pretty clear that Obama will win this thing and people will simply stop watching. The real question is how in the hell is MSNBC going to fill their hours of the day? Oh, I already know. Its those wretched documentaries that are nothing more than old Dateline eps repackaged. At least they could bring back the pervs on To Catch a Predator for us to laugh at. ;)

I actually really like MSNBC when its not politics but this year with their Obama-mania non-stop coverage, they're starting to look like the deranged gunman going after their prey (Fox) while Fox just sits back and waits for the political season to finish so they can go back to winning all 5 nights of the week instead of just 4.

Keith has a nasty adjustment ahead but I do believe he'll weather it successfully. He is the left's O'Reilly (although much less confrontational- I wish he would start getting people with different views on that show more so we could get some good youtube videos out of the deal).

Finally, I actually think there is more to advertising on cable news than 25-54 because so many viewers aren't that age. I mean come on, those ads for the Villages in Florida and Gospel favorites I see nightly aren't targeted at me. :)
Take care,
Jason

[Scott]

Some people have already touched upon the one glaring weakness of "Countdown" - Olbermann's refusal to interview people who fundamentally disagree with him. Some of the conservative talkers have stated they would debate Olbermann in a New York minute, either on "Countdown" or their show, but Olbermann refuses to debate. There are also the examples of ignoring Democrat-related scandals, twisting of quotes, and just plain hypocrisy.

And speaking of Rory O'Connor's book about "hate radio", does Rory think that Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy are examples of left-wing hate radio? Some of the things that those two yakkers have said on the air are really discustiung.