NY TIMES Sells MSNBC slimebag who spit at US Troops on Memorial Day
On May 27, 2012, Memorial Day Weekend, Chris Hayes made comments on air regarding the use of the word “heroism” as applied to American service members killed in action, stating that, “I feel... uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine,
NYT declares MSNBC’s Chris Hayes awesome, leaves out a few things
06/26/2012 By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller
dailycaller.com
He is chic, hip and after reading last weekend’s piece in The The New York Times Sunday Styles section, you might think that Chris Hayes and his show “Up w/Chris Hayes” is the best thing to hit cable TV for the hipster in-crowd since AMC’s “Mad Men.”
Hayes, the author of “ Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy,” finds himself on the receiving end of a 1,400-word Times puff-piece by Alex Williams, who had a lot of good things to say about Hayes’ weekend morning show. And the premise that Hayes had arrived seems to be predicated on getting a shout-out from rocker Ted Leo at a concert in Washington, D.C.
“Mr. Hayes, the host of MSNBC’s new morning weekend political talk show, was padding around his apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, early the next day when e-mails started popping up from excited friends who had been at the concert,” Williams wrote. “He was getting used to surging ratings and frequent mentions on The Huffington Post. But a shout-out from Ted Leo? He had arrived.”
A show that is in its infancy couldn’t ask for better press from an outlet like the Times, but what went unmentioned is that the Times and MSNBC have a cozy relationship.
Both are currently entered into a content-sharing partnership, according to the Times corporate page. The agreement, which appears to be still in effect, as the Times travel writer Michelle Higgins was featured on MSNBC’s website as recently as June 13, went undisclosed in Williams’ piece.
Williams did recall one of Hayes’ more noteworthy highlights in recent weeks, when he said he was “uncomfortable” using the word “hero” to describe fallen U.S. soldiers, which Williams called Hayes taking “his first banana-cream pie in the food fight that is contemporary American political discourse.”
Ratings hit? Not quite.
One of the points the article highlighted was Hayes’ ratings, which Williams described as a bright point in MSNBC’s declining overall ratings.
“While MSNBC’s overall ratings dipped in May along with those of other news channels, Mr. Hayes’s program was one of the few to surge, rising about 15 percent in total viewers over MSNBC’s programming in the time slot from the previous year,” Williams wrote. “Since Dec. 26, it has been No. 1 on average in its Sunday time slot on cable news channels among viewers ages 18 to 34, according to Nielsen figures provided by the network. Despite much of the country being in bed when it is on, ‘Up’ has occasionally flirted with the ratings of prime-time programs like ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ (hosted by Mr. Hayes’s mentor) among those 18-to-34 viewers.”
That appears to be a bit of cherry-picking from Williams, since overall Hayes is lacking the viewership numbers that might warrant a declaration that he has “arrived.” According to the Nielsen ratings for both his Saturday and his Sunday program for the second quarter, only 350,000 people tune into Chris Hayes on weekend days.
On Sundays, “Up w/Chris Hayes” ranks fourth in the time slot in total viewers — behind the Fox News Channel, CNN and HLN. On Saturdays and Sundays, he ranks third in the time slot in the 25-54 demo – the demo that actually counts in cable news.
Raw ratings for Saturday and Sunday at 8AM:
2Q’12 to date vs. 1Q’12
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| Saturday 8-9a, Program Name Averages
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| P 2+
| P 25-54
| P 18-34
| Network
| Period
| Program
| Days
| (000s)
| (000s)
| (000s)
| FOXN
| 1Q’12
| FOX & FRIENDS SATURDAY
| _____S_
| 1182
| 337
| 44
| FOXN
| 2Q’12td
| FOX & FRIENDS SATURDAY
| _____S_
| 1261
| 351
| 49
|
|
|
|
| 7%
| 4%
| 11%
|
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|
|
|
|
|
| CNN
| 1Q’12
| CNN SATURDAY MORNING
| _____S_
| 402
| 136
| 33
| CNN
| 2Q’12td
| CNN SATURDAY MORNING
| _____S_
| 343
| 113
| 26
|
|
|
|
| -15%
| -17%
| -21%
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| MSNB
| 1Q’12
| UP W/CHRIS HAYES
| _____S_
| 426
| 157
| 38
| MSNB
| 2Q’12td
| UP W/CHRIS HAYES
| _____S_
| 350
| 138
| 32
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|
|
| -18%
| -12%
| -16%
|
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|
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|
|
|
| HLN
| 1Q’12
| WEEKEND EXPRESS W/ CURRY
| _____S_
| 296
| 115
| 17
| HLN
| 2Q’12td
| WEEKEND EXPRESS W/ CURRY
| _____S_
| 283
| 142
| 14
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| -4%
| 23%
| -18%
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Read more: dailycaller.com
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