In the ideal cable news ratings world there would be the run up to a Presidential election *every* year. Sadly for MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, it's just one in four.
Comparing Q3 2009 with Q3 2008, the show has lost 21% of its cable news target adults 25-54 demo , and 12% of its average viewership. 2012 will be a long time coming.
You can see our daily cable news ratings here.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
I’m sure one of the reasons for the drop is the no presidential election. It would be interesting to know how many viewers have just tired of his same topics everynite, his mean spirtited name calling, and his nightly twisting of the facts on stories most don’t care about. Last week he mentioned Sarah Palin more times than he did Afghanistan and did not even cover the Zazi terroist plot. A show based on hate can last only so long.
I think you’re missing something, Fox News has had an upswing in viewership. This isn’t about election years, this is about an underdog leftist party on the attack becoming the status quo. No one wants to hear Keith now that he’s spitting out government propaganda. His audience used to enjoy him because he was part of the offensive. Now he is just a tool for the Democrat party and the progressive agenda. He was a tool before, but now that the Dems are in control it’s even more apparent.
The best thing for his show would be for a Republican to become president again and enter another unpopular war. Which doesn’t seem all that unlikely right now.
He’s actually been up with his numbers since Bush was in office. The election is probably why the numbers are down. He’s not the only commentator with lower because of it either.
@db-I’d say most of the 9/12 protesters, birthers and Beck followers exude a hell of a lot more hate than what you might get from Olbermann. Especially people protesting the president with signs that depict him as a primitive African monkey. Yeah, no hate or racism masked as “patriotism” there. Which thing did he mention about Palin by the way? Was it that she traveled to China to speak about how death panels actually exist and that Americans will have to be gassed if health care reform passes?
Wait a minute! I like to beat on old Kieth just as much as the next guy, but from the long term O’Reilly vs. Olbermann graphs that get posted here, it appears O’Reilly had an election year bump too? Am I miss reading this? I just want to make sure we are being “fair and balanced”. Can we generate the same chart for O’Reilly? I’ll do it if someone gives me the data.
Keith is the best thing that has happened to news. he is HONEST and he isNOT A TOOL OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY.HE is his own person. i have seen him admit when he is wrong-Fox news would never admit when they are wrong-which they are wrong almost all the time-pick on them instead of Keith.i will always watch Keith. marylou schmidt
How many people who grip about signs negatively depicting Obama complained about signs that morphed Bush and Hitter with the caption “Bushitler?”
The hate that was spewed at Bush in the anti Iraq wars dwarfs anything the mostly older teaparty crowd could come up with.
Also, Sharon, did you complain about this popular website?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/
Didn’t think so.
Hypocrite.
Typo I meant misreading … I don’t know Miss Reading
Dwarfs anything? Bush was attacked after years of bad decisions a poor policy and a war that was engaged in under false pretences. Obama was attacked from the day he was a democratic nominee, was called a halfrican by Rush Limbuagh, accused of being a racist by Glenn Beck without any reason and people still question his legitimacy as an American citizen even though he has produced a birth certicifcate. No one ever attacked Bush based off of his race, they attacked him because his politics lead to the deaths of thousands for reasons that were total crap, for allowing torture to get “information,” secretley spying on people while ignoring the constitution and exploiting a tragedy for his own gain.
Does old Kieth still end his show stating how many days it’s been since Bush declared victory in Iraq?
Well, I’m in the target demo, watched Countdown this time last year, but don’t even consider it as something to watch this fall. For me, the election is *definitely* why I tuned in every day.
Sharon is still trying to take a very small minority far right fringe people and make a mass ignorant generalization of the entire Conservative, Republican, right wing movement? So how many far right loons were in DC on 9/12? How many did we see on tv? a small handful? 10? 100? Even if they had shown 3000 people wearing monkey shirts holding Hitler signs, if you take the lowest left wing estimates of 60,000 people at the event, that would be a whopping 5%!!! Since when does 5% make a statement about a large group of people? Not to mention that the actual number would be much much smaller.
Want to discuss which protesting has caused violence, hate and CRIME lately? The Lefties or Righties? Well there were how many arrests of G20 protestors? Beck said 190, this place also says that (never heard of the site before so I will await to hear how it is a rightwing loony site): http://en.rian.ru/world/20090927/156264514.html And how many dumb kids did yous see protesting the G20 summit? They always showed small crowds on TV. I’d say it safe to assume it was much fewer than the 9/12′ers. So which group is actually demonstrating the hate and violence?
So lets use Sharons logic and reasoning for a minute. What does the fact that there is so much actual hate, actual violence, actual crime coming from far left idiots have to say?
Dave M, O’Reilly’s 2007 3Q average was 2.802M for P2+. His 2008 3Q average thus far for P2+ is 3.294M, an increase of about 18%. The election bump began very suddenly for both around mid-September, so it really didn’t play too much of a role in Q3′s numbers. The 4th quarter comparison will look bad for both, though worse for Olbermann.
sorry, 2008 and 2009, not 2007 and 2008
Perhaps more importantly O’Reilly’s 25-54 numbers are up almost 40% from last year Q3 (835,000 now from 603,000 in Q3 2008).
MikeS,
Fair enough … thanks!
Sharon,
Bush was attacked as a Racist by many many people. Remember Kanye West?
Beck accused Obama as a racist? Well, Obama said to judge him based on the people around him. How many racist radicals does he have around him? How many years did he listen to Rev. Wright? What did he say about his white grandmother in his book? Glenn Beck just pointed out what would seem kind of Obvious, that is, if you listen to Obama himself.
Very few people are attacking Obama because of his race. But I guess because you can find some idiots in the world who are in fact truly racist, you claim everybody who disagree’s with him is a racist. That is your side’s motto right now. If you don’t see how wrong that is there is no hope for any of you.
This chart appears to be intentionally misleading. Please compare 3rd quarter ratings for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
In 2007, Mr. Olbermann averaged 744,000 viewers in the 3rd quarter. So if we compare non-election year ratings, Olbermann is up from 744,000 in 2007 to 1,083,000, a rise of 339,000 in two years or about 30%. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117973200.html?categoryid=14&cs=1)If he continues that phenomenal rate of growth, he should be over 2,000,000 by the time the next election year comes.
I stopped watching Olbermann two years ago, I just couldn’t take his special comments. I wonder has he ever done a hate-filled special comment about Obama? He can’t be happy with Obama’s lack of leadership on healthcare and gay rights. I wonder what he will say when Obama puts more troops in Afghanistan, I guess that will be Sarah Palins fault.
One word to everyone…A.C.O.R.N.
’nuff said.
The problem is that that small group of people is all you see and hear about because they are the most vocal. They’re the only part of your party that is actaully organized which is pretty sad. No other republican has the spine to the tell them to shut up or distance themselves from them then that is all people will see. Notice how Obama said that he supported an investigation of ACORN (which is just such an important issue right now) or that he distanced himself from Wrigth and Ayers. They’ve hijacked your party and made them look like a bunch of biggots who are angry that a black man is president. What exactly are they protesting? A bail-out system and a bad economy that Bush first granted with no safe gaurds or “czars?” A title and system that was started during the Nixon administration and used extensivley by Bush. Didn’t see them protesting that then, come to think of it I don’t think anyone even cared about them during his adminstration. And now suddenly, Beck went after someone who is now comfortably under the orwellian eye of the RNC. Bush ws also attacked after he let an entire city get under water, and he was attacked by one person, a celbrity, who we know can’t keep his mouth shut. Unlike a whole group carrying signs that shows there true colors.
I’m not condoning all of the actions at the G20 protesters, but there is a huge difference between being angry and being full of fear and hate which is what most of the 9/12′s were doing. Also, how about this link Wearechange schools Pittsburgh police on constitution @ g20 9/24/09 Was there a reason for them to be as affraid of that small group of people?
Do you really think the police were worried about a bunch of senior citizens who have members that are big enough cowards to lie about there numbers(they used an old photo to “prove” it) and disguise there racism as being disgusted with current politics.