MEET THE PRESS Hits 21-year Low in Viewership

NBC’s ratings woes aren’t just limited to weekday mornings, evenings and late night. The network’s Sunday morning flagship Meet the Press–the longest-running show on network television, as its announcer reminds the audience every week–has recently fallen to a 21-year low. And as of the past few weeks, the show has come in third place on Sunday morning, trailing CBS’ Face the Nation and ABC’s This Week.

More than four years ago, the Los Angeles Times warned that the perennial “king of Sunday morning TV news talk shows could soon lose its crown,” a prediction that has been borne out in the years since. According to Nielsen data, Meet the Press is averaging its smallest total viewer audience (2.913 million) in 21 years and smallest 25-54 demo performance (854,000) in more than 21 years, dating back to the 1991-1992 season.

CBS’ Face the Nation is the clear winner, taking the number one spot away from Meet The Press for the first time in 15 years for total viewers and in 18 years for the 25-54 demo. The show even managed to maintain its lead last week when CBS was blocked from three major markets–New York, Los Angeles and Dallas–due to an ongoing dispute with Time Warner Cable. And this summer, on June 28th and August 4th, ABC’s This Week jumped to number two in total viewers and the demo, pushing Meet The Press to third place, a position in hasn’t seen in years. Read more >>

NBC To Finish 5th In Sweeps For First Time in History

In already bad month is getting worse for NBC. For the first time in sweeps history, the network is projected to finish fifth in the key adults 18-49 demographic. That’s a crushing blow for NBC, which went from flying high in November with a sweep win  & Steve Burke breaking his usual silence last fall to brag to the New York Times about the network’s performance to its shows cratering and ratings plunging.

From the beginning of the February sweep on January 31 through February 19, NBC has averaged a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49. That’s below the 1.5 that Univision has been averaging so far over the 20 night of the sweep period. In fact, Univision has bested NBC every single night of the sweep so far among adults 18-49 and is poised to overtake NBC for its first fourth-place sweep finish in the demo.

While this isn’t the first time Univision has topped one of the Big Three for a month (it ranked higher than CBS in July 2010 and 2012), it is the first time the Spanish-language network has beaten NBC and the first time it has come in fourth place in an in-season sweep. In addition to Univision, NBC also ranks below the 1.7 18-49 rating that ABC has been averaging this sweep, as well as the 2.0 rating for Fox and the 4.9 rating for leader CBS, which of course is buoyed by its broadcast of the Super Bowl on February 3 and the Grammy Awards on February 10. Read more >>

What's Going On In The Gulf?

Image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr

BP and the government decided that millions of gallons of dispersants should be dumped into the Gulf to sink and hide the oil.

They succeeded in sinking it. As ABC, CBS and NPR note, huge quantities of oil are blanketing the ocean floor, killing virtually all of the sealife which lives there.

And giant new underwater plumes have been found in the water column itself.

But officials don't want to hear about them. As one member of the oil spill recovery team said:

“My biggest concern is there’s [a plume of oil] five miles by 30 miles out there that was reported and no one responded. The Coast Guard said for days that they wanted to run tests, and if they don’t test it when it’s called in, they’ll never find it.” More...

Major Networks Threatened Boycott of White House in Support of Fox

Obama has resorted to paranoid Stalinist tactics which simply cannot be tolerated. What's next, dissident concentration camps?

Minneapolis Conservative Examiner

Officials invited the White House press pool to 5 minute interviews with Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg to discuss Feinberg's announcement to cut executive pay at at least 7 companies.

The press pool is made up of the 5 major news organizations including CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX. FOX has been a member of the White House press pool since 1997.



Officials invited the entire press corps to the round robin interview process with the express exception of FOX News. The Washington Bureau Chiefs of all of the 5 major networks consulted. The group agreed that if FOX were not allowed to participate, that they would boycott the interview with Feinberg in protest.

The White House eventually relented and granted 2 minute interviews for each network including FOX.

This comes on the heels of several Obama administration officials making the rounds on the weekend talk shows on the other 4 major networks and claiming that FOX News is more like "talk radio" and "not really a news organization" like ABC or CNN.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2927-Minne...corps-protests