For years, apologists for Phil Griffin’s debacle of a news network, MSNBC, have rationalized their ratings failures by claiming that their audience may be smaller than Fox News, but it’s younger and stronger in the key “money demo” of adults 25-54. For a few weeks in 2012 MSNBC actually had some good showings in the money demo, but this year they have been regularly trounced by Roger Ailes’ triumphant news network.
And now, things have gotten so bad “in demo” for MSNBC that Griffin might contemplate just running the documentary series “MSNBC Investigates” instead of the progressive prime time line-up featuring Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, and Ed Schultz.
Last Friday, December 13, The prime time talkers had “demo” ratings as follows:
Ed Schultz – 147,000
Al Sharpton – 210,000
Chris Matthews – 194,000
Chris Hayes – 171,000
Rachel Maddow – 234,000
Of course, none of this programming beat even the lowest rated “in demo” Fox News program, which pulled in 235,000 viewers. More importantly, the 11PM running of the non-political documentary series “MSNBC Investigates” grabbed an amazing 245,000 viewers in the adult 25-54 category.
In short, the valuable 25-54 demographic audience preferred to watch a news documentary at 11:00 PM over the shrill progressive vitriol spewed by Matthews, Sharpton, and the rest of the prime time hosts on MSNBC.