“Dan Abrams needs to say something about his network’s non-performance Tuesday during the North Korean missile launch,” a regular e-mailer writes to TVNewser. “If MSNBC is retreating from the news business, then he should let staff know.
If he says nothing, the worst of all assumptions will be made… that they at MSNBC were just too cheap or too disorganized to mount any sort of coverage of the biggest overseas story so far this year, short of Iraq.
By saying nothing, people will assume the absolute worst.”
On the other hand, the casual viewer probably didn’t care much about MSNBC’s apparent misstep. “I checked out the numbers for ‘the night the news channel died,'” a second e-mailer writes, by comparing “MSNBC’s demo numbers in primetime that night to three nights last week… Turns out MSNBC drew more demo viewers during primetime July 4 than it did last Tuesday and Thursday.” The e-mailer continues: “So yeah, the reputation among obsessed insiders took a hit, but the Demo ratings were in line with a ‘normal’ MSNBC talking head lineup from last week. Not bad given most people were out watching fireworks.”
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