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 >>

White House warns states of looming pain from March 1 budget cuts

The White House issued more dire warnings about the harm the cuts will do to Americans, breaking down the loss of jobs and services to each of the states.

The estimates show how many teachers could lose their jobs in each state, how many toddlers could be kicked out of subsidized preschool programs, and how many children could lose funding for vaccines for measles and mumps.

But Republicans, who advocate budget cuts, said the warning was overplayed, and called on President Barack Obama to apply what is known as the "sequester" in a more careful way, rather than slashing budgets across the board.

"They've rolled out this great political theater about how cutting less than 3 percent of the federal budget is going to cause all these awful consequences," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Read more >>

Meet the Press Rating Hits 20-Year Low

After a bad couple of weeks clunkily extracting Ann Curry as co-host of its morning infotainment show, NBC News found itself dealing with another unpleasant personnel report this week: David Gregory is on his way out as host of the network’s Sunday Beltway show, “Meet the Press.”

This week, the iPad news service The Daily ran a report that Gregory was right behind Curry in the NBC News Tumbril. The report about Gregory is not new — it surfaced a couple of months ago (at that time, Joe Scarborough was said to be his replacement). But stone-cold denials were issued by “Meet the Press” exec producer Betsy Fischer and NBC News President Steve Capus.

Another stone-cold denial was issued this week: “The rumors recklessly reported by The Daily are categorically untrue,” NBC News said in a statement. That, even though this time, The Daily reported that “Meet the Press” anchor Tim Russert was spinning in his grave over the show’s numbers. Russert ruled the Sunday Beltway show ratings until his sudden death in June of 2008. Last month, “Meet the Press’s” weekly rating hit a 20-year low among viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 — the currency of news programming. Read more >>