Inside Cable News has a number of slides from an online survey about MSNBC’s dayside programming. Among the questions are a number concerning straight news versus opinionated hosts.
It suggests to me that they’re still mulling going down that opinion dayside news path even after last year’s resounding ratings-reflective rebuke of a previous attempt at putting in POV anchors and shows on the dayside air. They wouldn’t be asking about these subjects if they weren’t still mulling doing yet another 180.
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Also included in the survey were questions regarding MSNBC’s current lineup of on-air talent, including both anchors and contributors. Spud notes that Karen Finney and Lynn Berry, who are not currently regulars on dayside or primetime are mentioned in the survey.
There were two big names not mentioned in the survey however:
There’s one big name on this list that’s missing; David Shuster. This all but confirms that Shuster is not part of MSNBC’s future. The other name left off, even though she still shows up anchoring occasionally, is Norah O’Donnell. Too bad. This also is a huge signal that despite the wishes of some of the commenters here, O’Donnell will not be making a return to the anchor chair full time in the near future.
If you were programming MSNBC, who would you plug into a daytime slot?