Desperate CNN Pondering Rush Limbaugh’s Programming Advice
Limbaugh…made a bold prediction regarding CNN’s failing ratings fortunes, after it was revealed that the once all-powerful cable news giant’s ratings had slipped to a 20-year low.
“I think they’re gonna move further to the left,” Rush told listeners, “to try to even ‘out-left’ MSNBC.”
– Kathy Shaidle, this past July.
Zucker is also an unrepentant liberal; he’d be perhaps the least objective news overseer in the nation. He was offered a slot in the prospective Gore administration in 2000, an offer he seriously considered. He then proceeded to head up NBC’s coverage of the Gore-Bush election. Jack Welch, head of NBCUniversal’s then-parent company, GE, suggested that Zucker had turned the Today show into Pravda. As head of NBCUniversal, he mandated that almost every prime-time show include green themes. He was personally a donor to the Obama 2008 campaign.
Bad ratings? Check. Horrible programming choices? Check. Massive liberal bias? Check. Turns out Jeff Zucker will be the perfect fit for CNN.
– “CNN Considering Former NBCUniversal Head Jeff Zucker For Top Slot,” Ben Shapiro, Big Journalism, today.
As viewers of NBC’s Sunday Night Football witnessed in 2007, Zucker brings new meaning to the phrase “Television blackout.” If he’s hired, I wonder which CNN show will turn their lights off first in the name of Gaia?
Which show? Why not shut down the entire network in the name of Gaia. That would show true greenier-than-thou credibility.
This would explain why Keith Olbermann’s been seen walking apparently aimlessly along Central Park South — The street dead ends west of the park at the Time-Warner Center, and Keith’s just figuring out the best route from his east side home to the CNN studios, after Zucker hires him for the 8 p.m. Eastern prime-time slot, because of those killer 60-ercent-below-O’Reilly ratings Keith got Jeff at MSNBC.
CNN’s fortunes are to put it mildly, not my top priority.
Don’t watch CNN anyway. People in airports don’t even watch it.
If Americans by the millions can follow the statistics of professional sports, making difficult algorithms into catchy phrases like “quarterback rating”, “on base percentage” and “plus/minus ratio” why can’t we score the media? When Tom Brady is shown during a ballgame the viewer is reminded that the Patriots QB is 10-14 in pass attempts with 147 yards passing, no interceptions and 1 touchdown, for example. Why can’t we do the same thing with Anderson Cooper? In some respects it would be simpler to keep track of their reporting history, as all published works are a matter of public record. Who’s more conservative? Brett Bier or Jake Tapper? Well if you compare the reporting by using an agreed upon set of standards, a “rule book” to create a spectrum by which every member of the media is rated, then the audience can refer to a graphic that shows the journalist’s political leanings. Every viewer, every listener and every reader should by law, have the right to know what the reporter bias is in order to make informed decisions about the content of their stories. The media no longer deserve any assumption of unbiased reportage.
PJMedia needs to call Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, and other wealth-burdened conservatives about financing a cable channel that would utilize PJMedia content.
Excellent idea. Let’s get PJMedia on Cable!
As I read that nonsense about NBC and the “blackout”, I just wanted to reiterate what I thought was a brilliant observation made over at ‘Ace of Spades’ blog, where the author (Ace, presumably?) noted that, if you categorically, totally, and utterly KNOW that you are NOT an alcoholic (you drink once a month, say), and someone accuses you of being an alcoholic, you, in response, will widen your eyes, jaw will drop, you will lean INTO your accuser and say “Really? Seriously? What on earth makes you say that, I’m genuinely curious!” And then you would listen, because you really ARE curious as to why he would say that.
But if you ARE an alcoholic, and want to pretend you are not, your reaction will be very different. You will turn prickly, defensive, angry, accusitory, and will likely make the issue about your accuser rather than whether there is any truth to what he says, and almost certainly start treating whoever said that with contempt and indignation.
And which reaction, friends and neighbors, will we get from virtually any media person, like at NBC, if you accuse them of liberal bias? Which reaction have we been getting since…. forever?
A magnificent observation from one of the Great Blogs.
well, if he’s worshipping Gaia, if you really want to be mean, compare his religous network to CBN, or any of the other, more Christian broadcasters. Hey, you could even go worldwide-BBC and it’s cult of Leviathan, or if there’s anything Hindu on Indian TV.
Another argument for unbundling cable TV.
Th lamps are going out all over NBC and will not be lit again in our generation. Or something.
CNN tapping Zucker rather like the Cunard Line, right after the Titanic disaster, replacing their Chairman of the Board with an ex-captain recently dimissed for deliberately steering his vessel into icebergs.
CNN, yes and move more to the left. We shall anticipate your bankruptcy soon.
When will the Chicago Sun Times get their copies of the Blagojevich tapes and transcripts?
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/11/28/when-will-the-chicago-sun-times-get-their-copies-of-the-blagojevich-tapes-and-transcripts/
CNN chases after a bigger share of the already saturated market for leftist-biased news. Good luck.
The Left intends to ride their flaming wreck of a media all the way to the smoking crater. If they wanted to improve their product and increase viewership they would have been doing very different things all along. They keep pouring fuel on the fire, pushing forward on the stick, and adding power.
You don’t need cable TV, everything worth watching is on YouTube or Netflix.
No wonder liberals do not understand the folly of government rewarding failure. That’s how they run the private sector too.
But, I have wondered for sometime, what does Jack Welch think of current G.E. CEO Jeff Immelt?
CNN…the death of a once mighty network…all others take note…
CNN…. hmmmm… CNN?
Didn’t they used to be a TV station, or something like that? On Cable, maybe?
Hmmmm, maybe it’ll come to me, it does sound familiar…