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What Olbermann (and Current) Aren't Telling Us About His Ratings
No nightly ratings reports. CurrenTV and Keith 'Transparency' Olbermann have been unusually secretive about the ratings for the new Countdown. So far we have only been given two sets of figures: ratings in the key 25-54 demo for the first night (179K), and a summary rating of the first week: 131K 25-54 viewers.
Now it's clear that the premiere night viewership was much higher than the overall weekly average proved to be. That means that while it appeared that his debut put him in 29th place compared to the rest of the cable news viewership, going by a week's worth of ratings--a more representative sample--finds the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann did considerably worse than 29th place. In fact, that number places him tied with reruns of Celebrity Apprentice in 40th place!
But that week's worth of numbers also includes the inflated premiere night ratings, an unrepresentative thumb on the scale that does not represent the night-by-night viewership of the program. So another way to look at the numbers is to exclude the opening night outlier. Mathematics tells us that the other four nights (Tuesday-Friday) had to average 119K viewers for the week's overall numbers to be 133K. Well, a 119K nightly viewership is even more of an embarrassment for Edward R Olbermann. Given that kind of meager audience he now finishes in 42nd place, behind every program on FNC (including the 3:00 am Red Eye), behind Joe Scarborough, behind Headline News's morning program...even behind CNN's struggling American Morning.
42nd place! At this rate it won't be long before Squawk Box and Sermonette start out-rating Oralmann. As a first week, it can only be called...disastrous.
Comments are open!
2Q 11 (LIVE+SD) FINAL Competitive Program Analysis (excluding breaking news & specials)2Q'11 FINAL (03/28/11-06/24/11)Ranked On:A25-54
FOXNTHE OREILLY FACTORMTWTF__06:00A -11:00P 636
FOXNHANNITYMTWTF__06:00A -11:00P 504
FOXNGLENN BECKMTWTF__06:00A -11:00P 413
FOXNON THE RECORD W/GRETAMTWTF__06:00A -11:00P 398
Olbermann Revives Grudge Against Petraeus with New Attack
Keith Olbermann is such a slippery, weaselly bastard. On September 10, 2007, the hot political topic of the day was the moveon.org advertisement that portrayed General David Petraeus as 'General Betray Us'. Politicos from Mitt Romney to Nancy Pelosi condemned this attempt to paint a military hero as a traitor who would betray his country. Of course Edward R Olbermann chimed in, attacking Republicans as 'egregious' for criticizing the ad, while pretending to be reluctant to echo the ad by saying: 'Not to defend that phraseology'.
Funny, how Olbermahn pretended to disapprove of the Petraeus-BetrayUs line...funny, because it was Olbermann himself who created it! Weeks before the moveon.org ad appeared with its reprehensible language, Edward R Olbermann had already beaten them to the punch, bellowing in his opening spiel:
OLBERMANN: Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? The Petraeus report, less Petraeus, more betrayaeus (ph).
Just to drive the point home he also plastered it on screen, as the graphic illustrates. But when Olbermann's own language became so toxic that even Nancy Pelosi rejected it, Keith pretended like he had nothing to do with it, and whimpered: 'Not to defend that phraseology'. As we said, Olby is a weasel, and a spineless one at that.
So what does this all have to do with tonight's Hour of Spin? Follow. Oralmann's vicious attack on Petraeus, impugning his patriotism by calling him a traitor, had its roots in Gen Petraeus's plan to surge in Iraq. And Gen Olbermahn didn't like that, not one bit. He railed against it night after night, predicting that Petraeus's reckless plan was doomed to result in a massacre of US forces, and would produce nothing more than 'failed blood-letting'.
Oralmann kept up his smears of Petraeus. A year later, as the success of the surge became evident and the predicted 'blood-letting' failed to take place, Olby moved the goalposts, insisting that the goal of the surge wasn't about reducing violence anyway, so there! And besides, he pointed out with the loopy assistance of Rachel Maddow, Petraeus is just trying to 'sell a political platform'.
For normal people what happened next would have been the end of the grudge. A candidate for President was asked about the surge in Iraq. His response:
It succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
The candidate who said that? Our current President: Barack Obama. That should've been enough even for Olbermann to pack it in, and admit (if only to himself) that he was wrong about the surge, and wrong about Petraeus.
Ah, but the infamous, deplorable one does not give up his grudges so easily. Being proven wrong only deepened and intensified his seething hatred for Petraeus. And now, years after it was clear to everyone--even Barack Obama--that the General was right and Keith Olbermann was horribly, disastrously incorrect, Olby hasn't moved on. He's never admitted he got it wrong. He's never retracted calling the General an un-American traitor--let alone apologized for it. And tonight he will launch a fresh attack on David Petraeus.
The latest Special Education Comment will demand (yes, demand! Are you listening, Mr President?!) that Barack Obama pull the nomination of David Petraeus to head the CIA. Because? Well, he'll have the usual talking-point reasons assembled by trollling through his favorite blue blogs, and no doubt he'll frame it as having to do with 'torture' or some other pretextual justification. But now you know the truth, the real reason why Olbermann hates General David Petraeus and is still holding a grudge for nearly half a decade.
Clever Olbermann Trick to Annoy MSNBC Lasts Less Than a Week
No doubt Edward R Olbermann thought this was the cleverest thing in the world. He would make his community access cable show run over each night with three extra minutes, thereby screwing up people who wanted to watch shows at 9:00 pm (primarily an attempt to annoy those evil overlords at MSNBC who dared to fire him earlier this year). Well, all petty things must come to an end, and the infamous, deplorable one has already decided to abandon this oh-so-clever stratagem, reversing course before he's even concluded his first week on the air!
Olby took to twitter this afternoon to spin the decision to his credulous followers:
At @current we'll soon have a 9 PM companion commentary show to mine. But in the interim there is no reason for me to be overlapping with my friend Rachel, nor to ignore the wishes of those who've been so loyal to both of us for so long. We've heard you: as of tomorrow night Countdown finishes at 9. Bonus stuff will instead go to Countdown Online. Thanks for upsiding my head on this :)
Note the 'my friend Rachel' wording, designed to distract the reader from noticing that this entire bit of Olby chicanery was targeted at his 'friend' Rachel in the first place!
Meanwhile, with the heavily hyped premiere now receding into history, Olbermann continues to keep any more current ratings a deep, dark secret. No leaks, no self-congratulatory tweets, no snarky comments about beating CNN. Man, those numbers must be something else. If you think Keith Olbermann should lift the veil of secrecy on his nightly Nielsens, tweet him at @KeithOlbermann and tell him so. It's about time Oralmann delivered the same sort of transparency that he demands of everyone else!
On tonight's Hour (+ 3 minutes) of Spin, the usual gang of (D) politicians and left-wing spin maestros on the most one-sided program since Radio North Korea. Attacks on Republicans over the budget talks, the Afghanistan war, and agit-prop for gay marriage, drugs, and illegal immigration. Special guest: Jeanine 'racism, straight-up' Garafalo. Because Countdown always gets the most respected intellectuals as guests.
Why Has the Olbermann/Current Hype Machine Suddenly Gone Silent?
It was Tuesday, around 6:30 pm. Keith Olbermann and his corporate overlords couldn't wait to hype their amazing 29th-place finish on Monday, premiere night for Countdown 2.0 on Current. The numbers were promptly leaked to the 'right' people, and Olby himself jumped to direct his twitter lemmings where to read all about it.
But oddly, the information provided only told half the story. Current and Oralmann boasted about their ratings in the important, vital, crucial, nothing-else-matters, significant, key demo of 25-54, but what about total viewers? That information was withheld, and remains so even now. Why? That's a question that also occurred to Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik, who noted the irony of the situation:
The main reason for such a redacted ratings release is that it makes it easier to spin numbers when the folks are only getting the bright and shiny ones. And isn't that just the kind of corporate spin and truth-shading that Olbermann says his show is so against?...
But it is hypocritical, isn't it, to sit in front of a camera from 8 to 9 p.m. five nights a week demanding transparency from everyone else, and then playing the selective-release, PR, spin game with your Nielsen numbers?
But that's Olbermann, isn't it?
It sure is. Mr Zurawik continues:
By the way, as folks like Conan O'Brien know, opening night numbers have a tendency to be inflated. So, let's not go nuts one way or the other over these.
Isn't that a coincidence. Here it is, only minutes before Wednesday's Hour (and three extra minutes of Olby pettiness) of Spin is to commence, and we're still in the dark about the ratings for Tuesday, the day after opening night, which as Mr Zurawik says will likely show a marked decline from Monday's numbers. Not a peep from Edward R Olbermann. Not a peep from Current. Suddenly the hype machine, in overdrive for weeks, has gone silent. Why?
It could be just a minor delay, and if there is any info released on this tonight we'll update this post with the Big News as soon as it becomes available. But what if Olby and Current decide they aren't going to give us any ratings for Tuesday? Or Wednesday? Or any other day where the numbers can't be spun to make Countdown appear to be a success? The infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann could go on the air night after night and demand everyone else be transparent...while he and his underlings hide the truth from the rest of world. That would truly be one of the Great Moments in Olbypocrisy.
While we await the now long-overdue Tuesday Transparency, we invite you to recap tonight's atrocious episode of Countdown. It will kick off with the Prez talking to us about Afghanistan, and then Oralmann will be on with his instant analysis.
By the way, one of Monkeymann's guests will be Matt Taibbi, who just by coincidence has written a scorching hit-piece on Michele Bachmann. Plus Fat Ass will welcome none other than 9/11 truther Van Jones. Hey, what a great opportunity to attack Bachmann and bash Fox News! After all, both of those are far more important than talking about Afghanistan. It's more of that vaunted Olbermann 'news judgment'.
Current Claims Their Secret Numbers Show Countdown a Success!
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Current has released the first-night numbers for the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann. The channel claims that Edward R Olbermann attracted 179,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demo, crowing that they "beat CNN"! Of course at that hour CNN is running the basement-dwelling Eliot Spitzer hour, so that's not saying much. Still, it's an impressive first-night for Herr Olbermahn, but with the curiosity factor satiated, we should look for those numbers to sag as the week goes on.
But can we trust these numbers at all? Just because Current says something doesn't make it true; don't forget who their Chief News Officer is. According to TV By the Numbers:
CurrentTV does not subscribe to the Nielsen service that would regularly measure its programs (presumably because it's only in around 60 million homes). Until CurrentTV subscribes to be measured, there's no chance we (or anybody else) will regularly see any numbers and unless they order a special report and then release those numbers, you won't likely see any one-off reporting either.
Interestingly, the word 'Nielsen' doesn't appear anywhere in the Hollywood Reporter piece. Hmm, do we know these numbers from Current are Nielsen numbers at all, as opposed to something Olby's interns came up with while making random calls to the Daily Kos subscriber base? It all remains to be seen, but assuming arguendo the 179K is correct, where would that leave Olby? In the top 10 cable news shows? Top 20? Well, here is the list (25-54 demo). Note: this list only covers early morning and primetime shows. Fox News daytime programs routinely out-rate many of the primetime shows on other channels, but the nightly ratings do not include the daytime hours:
O'Reilly - 735K
Hannity - 483K
O'Reilly repeat - 438K
Nancy Grace - 419K
Glenn Beck - 411K
Fox Report - 341K
Jane Velez-Mitchell - 332K
Anderson Cooper - 332K
Bret Baier - 329K
Ed Show - 319K
Fox & Friends - 310K
Rachel Maddow - 310K
Joy Behar - 264K
Prime News - 239K
The Last Word - 237K
Cooper 360 (11 pm) - 226K
HLN Special Report - 212K
Piers Morgan - 212K
Last Word (11 pm) - 206K
Morning Joe - 203K
Situation Room - 186K
Hardball - 183K
Countdown - 179K
There you have it. Edward R Olbermann finishes in the #23 slot (in fact lower than that given the numbers that Fox daytime programs pull). Isn't it ironic? Markos 'The Liar' Moulitsas ridiculed Joe Scarborough as the 'lowest rated' morning cable news host...yet Joe still has more viewers than Keith Olbermann does! If anyone believed Markos, that would mean Olbermann loses to every morning cable news show on the air, but of course we know better than to believe Markos. It's enough to realize that KO is pulling up the rear, exactly where he belongs.
Discuss, resolve, and recap tonight's gruesome Hour of Spin, which will revisit Jon Stewart vs Chris Wallace, John McCain, Afghanistan...and hey, maybe Edward R Olbermann will even discuss some topics he didn't cover less than 24 hours ago.
Comments are open!
UPDATE: Politico tells us that Current has recently started being rated by Nielsen. They also note that Current has forbade Nielsen from releasing the total viewership (all ages) numbers for Countdown, from which we can conclude that they suck. Meanwhile, here's an interesting bit of context about Current's status in the overall cable picture.
For a fuller picture of how Mr Opening Night's ratings compare with other cable news programs, here are the top cable news programs (25-54 demo) for May 2011, with Olby added in. This list includes the daytime programs the nightly list omits:
O'Reilly - 630K
Hannity - 498K
Glenn Beck - 412K
Greta - 405K
Fox Report - 398K
O'Reilly (11pm) - 396K
Anderson Cooper - 388K
Fox & Friends - 388K
Bret Baier - 374K
Rachel Maddow - 336K
Anderson Cooper (11pm) - 322K
America's Newsroom - 317K
The Ed Show - 298K
The Last Word - 266K
Piers Morgan - 250K
John King USA - 245K
The Situation Room - 240K
America Live - 228K
Your World w/Cavuto - 217K
Happening Now - 216K
Studio B - 209K
CNN Newsroom - 205K
MSNBC Investigates - 201K
Hardball - 198K
The Last Word (11pm) - 197K
In the Arena - 197K
Morning Joe - 182K
Red Eye - 179K
Countdown 2.0 - 179K
As you can see, compared with May's ratings, the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann is even further down the totem pole. Daytime programs on CNN beat his inflated opening night numbers. In fact, every daytime program on Fox News beats him like a rented mule. But Olby did manage to tie Red Eye...which airs at 3:00 am.
Countdown 2.0 Premiere: The Official OlbyWatch Recap!
The new and improved Hour of Spin featured the same sort of opening spiel as ever. A rant against the Libyan war, and a slam on Reagan: "He's dead and he was a lousy President". Clarence Thomas. Conservatives selling their souls, And already a special education comment: government by the people, not by the corporations...like the ones who sponsor Countdown. And greatest cellphone video ever, where the audio drops out for an uncomfortably long time. We're back on OlbyPlanet guys, so watch for attacks on Fox, Republicans, etc. But can the infamous, deplorable one find a way to actually bring up Bush for some primo bashing? Stay tuned!
#5 begins with "As I was saying..." Attack on Rove and Liz Cheney [ding!] for wanting to get the Libyan war over with by ramping up the strikes. Olby cites the Libyan foreign minister's condemnation of the USA. Yeah, his sources are stellar as usual. Keithy stumbles into an accuracy (it had to be inadvertent) regarding the Congress role in war-making. He says Dennis Kucinich (D) is suing on this point. Actually, Keith doesn't want to admit it but the lawsuit was not filed by just Kucinich but by a bipartisan group of ten lawmakers, both (D) and (R).
Then to explore the constitutional issues, who does Fat Ass bring on? Fatter Ass! Michael Moore, who is an expert in...what exactly? Never mind, at least he didn't joke about wanting a hurricane to kill Republicans, like he did the time Olby found it so funny. The discussion was about as illuminating as a burned-out black light, and of course since you can't take anything either one of them says at face value, it had no educational merit whatsoever. But it did serve a key Olbermahn purpose: they managed to swerve the topic to cherry-picking, torture, and--you guessed it--George W Bush! That's more of a stretch than Olby's vest but it was precisely where Oralmann wanted to go.
Then the special comment: contexualization, viewpoint, independence, malfeasance of Republicans, timidity of Democrats, and the obligatory obscure literary quote. This time: Harriet Beecher Stowe. And we were hoping for JK Rowling. But we're thankful for small favors: it wasn't Thurber.
Wow, the first break features ads from Lexus, Foster Grant, and Pradaxa (Big Pharma!). No corporatism here, eh Keithy? The break was interrupted by a typical tease: "Markos Moulitsas inside the Republican Cult".
The next story (apparently they're not being numbered as they were on A-Mess-NBC) is an attack on Clarence Thomas over 'reported' contributions to his wife and to a non-profit library. Now who better to analyze the ethics of a Supreme Court Justice than a convicted felon who is also a disbarred lawyer? That's right, it's John Dean lecturing others about ethics. Sort of like getting advice on modesty from Anthony Weiner. Sure enough Dean manages to bring Nixon into it. It must be noted here that both Olbermann and Dean focused their attack on the Supreme Court's black justice. Isn't this 'racism, straight-up?' Tease for an attack on Fox News. Talk about nostalgia! Man, it's like 'That 70s Show', only more horrible.
Second break: Ads from Microsoft bookend a lengthy promo for a Current football show. Somebody couldn't straight sell all their ad time?
Ooh goody, it's the Current version of Oddball, cleverly called...'Time marches on'. Gee, the first story is about...a Microsoft store. Now there's a coincidence. Then Hollywood dresses and Japanese robots. A tease for a Limbaugh attack ("right-wing radio talker").
Third break: Ford Motors, Zantac (Big Pharma!)...hey, good thing they're not delivering corporate news on this show, ain't it?
Attack on talk radio, complete with the obligatory mispronouncing of Mark Levin's name and cringe-inducing Oralmann 'voice impression'. Lonesome Rhodes [ding!]. Politico's Kenneth Vogel sacrificed any claim to integrity he had by appearing on OlbyPlanet to hype his report on alleged stealth advertising on talk radio. Monkeymann couldn't wait to compare it to 'payola', and expressed phony 'shock'. Vogel was Great Thanksed.
Fourth break: Chrysler motors, Geico, Spiriva (more Big Pharma!...it seems like we won't be seeing any pharmaceutical exposes soon).
KO once boasted that he was dropping 'Worst Persons' in a nod to the new civility, but here it is again. Bronze: Sarah Palin. (Congrats to all who picked Palin as one of the three. Olby is about as unpredictable as Pavlov's dog). Silver: Fox Noise [ding!] He bellowed that Fox 'deceptively edited' 'one key moment' from the Jon Stewart interview...how so? They edited the broadcast version, just as Stewart does, and posted the uncut version on line, just as Stewart does. Somehow, Edward R Olbermann failed to mention that Fox posted the entire unedited video online. Somehow Edward R Olbermann failed to mention that Fox's online video was the source of the clip he played! And his claim that they edited out 'one key moment'? Misleading: the unedited interview runs nearly 25 minutes, what aired is about 10 minutes less. A lot had to be trimmed to fit it into one Fox News Sunday segment, not just 'one key moment'. As usual, when Merkle attacks Fox News, it's not what he says, it's all the things he doesn't say, that prove him a liar. Gold: Some dumb cellphone video.
Fifth break: T Mobile, plus more Microsoft, Foster Grant, Chrysler ads. None of these are corporations of course, because Countdown would never take ads from corporations.
Final story: Inside the secessionist, racist Republican Cult...while running down these stories Monkeymann started talking at a mile a minute, because it was 8:57 and he still hadn't brought on GOP expert Markos Moulitsas. Too bad we can't do voice impressions here, like Oralmann does. But we'll try. Moulitsas: Jon Huntsthman ith not embrathed by the grathrooth. hith tough thlog ith pretty much impothible. Itth gonna be tough to untheat Obama. Olby monumentously announced he would go over the 9pm time, to allow Moulitsas to claim Joe Thcarborough hath veto power at M-Eth-NBC (which is why Markos hasn't been on MSNBC). Moulitsas lied, saying Thcarborough is the lowetht rated cable newth morning hotht. Funny thing, neither Markos nor Olby mentioned that Markos was banned for spreading a rumor that Joe Scarborough had murdered a woman in Florida. Funny that little detail didn't come up, ain't it? Moulitsas: I have a thick thkin. I'm happy that you're here, you get to call the shots, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you. (You know, like trying to convince people that Joe Scarborough is a murderer.)
Papers into the camera and the first Countdown is mercifully over.
Countdown to Countdown: Make Your Predictions Here!
Tomorrow...tomorrow...it's only a day away. The frenzied panting of the Olbyloons will reach a orgiastic climax in just about 24 hours from now. The premiere of Countdown 2.0 on the community-access channel Current is set to revolutionize television. Dispensing with false humility (or any other kind), Edward R Olbermann will actually have an enlarged photograph of Murrow decorating his set. Ever the master of subtlety.
Use this space to give us your pre-premiere predictions, ratings speculations, and (if you like) best wishes to the infamous, deplorable one. And come back 24 hours from now to share your instant reactions to Keith Olbermann's march to marginalization.
In a much-hyped tell-all 'explosive' interview designed as part of the publicity push for the ever-approaching premiere of Countdown on some cable-access channel in the 300s, the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann reveals that he has scooped up the much-in-demand services of a reporter with impeccable credentials. Yes, David 'Slippery' Shuster, who for years played Robin to Olby's Bathman, will be Oralmann's substitute anchor (mainly when there's a ball game in the vicinity) on the new incarnation of Countdown.
David Shuster's reputation as an impartial journalist is well-known. Before he made MSNBC history with his 'pimped out' comment about Chelsea Clinton, Davey was so eager to air phony attacks on Sarah Palin that he actually broadcast an internet hoax thinking it was a news story! And even after he was suspended Shuster was still lying, only doing it on Twitter. But Robin is best known for his scoop--which he beat every other reporter in the country to. It was on Countdown that he broke the news that 'Karl Rove will be indicted'. It was a shining moment in Shuster's illustrious career--and might we say a defining one?
The rest of the Hollywood Reporter article is even more free PR for Olby and goes into all the bridges he burned at MSNBC--including Rachel Maddow, his one time protoge. Read it at your peril as we eagerly await the infamous, deplorable one's upcoming debut on community-access cable.
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