MSNBC released another of its Lean Forward promos, this time featuring Melissa Harris-Perry, who hosts a weekend show on the network. The promo features Harris-Perry talking about society raising children “collectively”:
The promo did exactly what a good promo should: it got everyone talking about it. Former Fox News contributor Sarah Palin commented on it multiple times. It has spread virally online, to both conservative and liberal websites, and Fox News has ran no fewer than five segments on the ad, according to TVEyes. Five segments about a 30 second ad for a competing network.
One MSNBC staffer told TVNewser that they were “giddy” with the response, which has people talking about Harris-Perry’s weekend show in a way that has not happened since it launched. While many of the conservative critics of the ad are unlikely to watch her program in the first place, by amplifying it, it is likely reaching a much wider audience than it would have otherwise.
Or as The Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple writes:
Is Roger Ailes on vacation this week or something? In case he is, here’s a message to Fox News from the Erik Wemple Blog: Stop it! Pretend this ad doesn’t exist. Other outlets are supposed to fill their programming by obsessing over your stuff, not the other way around.