The State of MSNBC: When One Lean Forward Becomes Two Steps Backward

The State of MSNBC: When One Lean Forward Becomes Two Steps Backward

In the fall of 2011, MSNBC was riding high.

Occupy Wall Street had ignited a sleeping giant, bringing disenchanted Americans of all ages to Zucotti Park and cities across the country to rail against corporate greed and capitalism gone wild. The movement, mixed with the buildup to a pivotal presidential election, led to record ratings for MSNBC, which had firmly become the media megaphone for progressiveness.

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I would know–I was there.

As a booking producer from 2011-2012, I saw firsthand the excitement swirling around the newsroom as anchors hosted from the protest scene; the energy behind an election with very high stakes.

Three years later, MSNBC took a chainsaw to its daytime lineup, canceling three opinion programs last Thursday–and will soon tinker with its primetime lineup–evolving itself to become more of an NBC News-lite.

A decision that will likely doom the network to a permanent third place finish.

“Being progressive isn’t the problem, it’s the solution,” former MSNBC anchor and host of The Young Turks Cenk Uygur told TheWrap about the “Lean Forward” network.

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“You shouldn’t lean in any direction, you should go boldly in one direction or another. And you certainly should have an idea which direction you’re going.”

A longtime network insider isn’t buying into the hard news pivot either: “They’re trying something that’s already been tried 15 years ago; I’m skeptical whether it will work,” the individual told TheWrap.

At last week’s network town hall, MSNBC president Phil Griffin answered a question on why executives were again embracing news. “What makes you think this is going to change anything?” one staffer asked.

“The times have changed: what we did then wasn’t the right time to do that, but now it is,” Griffin answered. He also said the network now has proper resources to do breaking news well, which they didn’t have in its early days.

Another insider strongly disagrees: “The notion that audiences are jonesing for another breaking news network, from MSNBC no less, is managerial ineptitude comparable to that of the New York Mets (baseball team with unpopular owners).”

But to understand why MSNBC’s hard news shift won’t work, it’s necessary to look at what got it to this point. In the 2000’s, MSNBC had no real identity.

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“They had Scarborough, a conservative pushing Republican talking points, in the morning for three hours,” Uygur continued. “They had Chris Matthews who shifts in the wind – thought George Bush belonged on Mount Rushmore and then had a thrill up his leg with Barack Obama.”

Then Keith Olbermann lit a fire under 30 Rock executives’ seats, all-but rejecting the segments produced for him at 8 p.m., going renegade to become the media opponent to President Bush.

Ratings followed, and so did a successful, more nuanced partner in crime–Rachel Maddow. MSNBC filled in its lineup with more progressive voices, like the socialism-friendly Lawrence O’Donnell, the pro-union firebrand Ed Schultz, and of course, network linchpin Chris Matthews.

After President Obama was reelected, MSNBC saw a ratings dip like other media outlets. The drop evolved to falling off a cliff, as 2014’s third quarter was the network’s lowest-rated quarter in seven years; it’s total 2014 numbers bumped the network back to number 3 in the advertising-coveted 25-54 demo.

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“Their strategy for developing talent has broken down and after Olbermann left, they had a real hard time trying to mint new anchors that would hold on to the audiences Olbermann and Maddow had pioneered,” Erig Deggans, NRP TV critic, told TheWrap.

But the network actually did develop one personality that resonated during the post-Olbermann era. Ed Schultz was doing well for the channel at 8 p.m., drawing close to a million viewers in the final quarter of 2012, nearing what Olbermann averaged in his heyday.

In a dumbfounding move, MSNBC president Phil Griffin yanked Schultz in March 2013, demoting him to “Weekend Siberia.” His replacement: the younger, wonkier Chris Hayes–a play for younger viewers.

Hayes’ more nuanced style–a hit on his weekend show–never translated to primetime. He consistently came in third or fourth place in viewers and 25-54 viewers behind Rachel Maddow after him and Chris Matthews before him. Al Sharpton has also not panned out at 6 p.m.–watch no further than “Saturday Night Live” for more on that.

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And of course there was the failed Ronan Farrow experiment at 1 p.m. After becoming enamored by Farrow over dinner, Griffin came away convinced the 27-year-old former Rhodes scholar would be his next star. But Farrow, with zero previous hosting experience, flamed out in the afternoons, stuck as a baby-faced personality trying to host a traditional cable news show between Cialis commercials.

His show was cancelled in less than a year. Farrow’s poor-performance didn’t help Joy Reid–a favorite guest contributor of numerous MSNBC hosts–at 2 p.m. She also lasted less than a year.

MSNBC

And then there was the failed, 5-minute Alec Baldwin program, a classic example of when hiring stars for the sake of being stars goes wrong.

All of these moves had one thing in common: short-term thinking instead of a long term vision; one where MSNBC would stake its claim as the unabashed media champion for liberalism–a network that would give you the news, but also fight with its audience for progress.

“They didn’t know if their mandate was to be progressive, to be objective anchors or to be just pro-Democrats,” Uygur said. “Now they are going to have a conservative on for three hours in the morning, then be a second rate CNN in the daytime and then have some progressives at night. What in the world is that brand?”

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Whether MSNBC’s pivot to breaking news–including the upcoming addition of Brian Williams–produces an uptick in ratings or opens the floodgates for a collapse is up for debate. But its executives might want to step out of their meeting rooms, and visit rallies happening around the country.

There’s a reason presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has over 10,000 people appearing at his campaign stops–he’s speaking to the loud, populist anger at unfettered capitalism.

A notion–and viewer–MSNBC came close to picking up years ago, but abandoned on Thursday.

A decision that’s one “Lean Forward” and two damaging steps backward.