Did you see that?
Today marks the final airing of MSNBC’s Olympic Update, which aired for two weeks from 5-7pmET. While enjoying strong ratings from an Olympic coverage lead-in, it amassed largely negative press. Terms like “Amateur Hour,” and “Mean-Girl insults,” were used, as were statements like, “The two seem to have worse chemistry than Barber and Eli Manning.” MSNBC message boards were full of negative reviews as well.
The “Barber” refers to Tiki Barber, who co-hosts with Jenna Wolfe in Beijing and Tamron Hall in New York.
As an example of the uncomfortable chemistry, here’s a bit from yesterday’s show:
Wolfe: What do you tell people that your nickname is?
Hall: My nickname is T-nice because all the crew members say I’m so nice.
Wolfe: No, no, no. Let me explain what your nickname is. TP, my friend. Tight Pants Tamron. TP-Tamron.
Hall: Tight pants. I’m going to kill you. Tight Pants Tamron. Well, let me tell you, today I lived up to my name. You have no idea, thank you very much.
Wolfe: Oh, we have some idea.
Hall: Yeah. Well, I — you know, I’m not going to comment because it’ll be on a blog and we’ll have to deal with it later.
Indeed. Also, apparently Wolfe is known as J-Date and Barber is Tik-ster.
But the most talked about moment of the last two weeks relates to a segment featuring Brian Williams and a discussion about “total medal count.” Newsday and the New York Daily News have stories today about the YouTube hit.
“Tiki and Jenna were discussing total medal count versus gold medal counts and Tiki’s words were unclear,” said an MSNBC statement about the matter.
Keep that in mind, while clicking continued to see the Barber clip…