Poltico had a great quote over the weekend from an MSNBC anchor who said health care discussions were "bad for ratings". The comment was in relation to the poor ratings for the health care dominated news conference by President Obama. FOX was the only network that didn't carry it (surprise!). They got better ratings for their dance competition show.
It's hardly news that TV news "editorial" decisions are ratings driven. Back when APT was a news gathering entity, we used to say we were the people who let people finish what they were saying, meaning we would use :40 or :50 or even a full :60 of a statement air unedited. Radical stuff, no? There were no commercials, so we didn't have to worry about ratings. The idea was to do the best shows and let those who wanted to watch, watch. The audiences may have been smaller, but that was OK. Yet in recent years there were times when the state net would not pick up the PBS feed of a Presidential News Conference. I don't know if they aired last week's Obama Health Care event. But these days, at least for FOX, it's somehow a good editorial decision NOT carry a presidential news conference on perhaps the most important question of our time, even if there is no advertising revenue at stake.
[AND ALSO: From this morning's N.Y. Times...YouTube & Local News. Just what local TV needs, another competitor!]
forty six percent American says Health care reform is not a good deal.
ReplyDeletesorry but I'm not agree with them.