Firing Blanks

David Gregory on the declining (and declining and declining) ratings of Meet the Press:

“I get it,” says Gregory, the face of the longest-running TV program in American history (founded: 1947). “Do I want to be number one in the ratings? Every week I want to be number one, and we fight like hell to get there. And it’s tough right now. It’s a fight.”

He adds, “I’m not just trying to sell you — well, I am trying to sell you — but I’m not going to B.S. you, either. Yeah, it’s hard. I see what our challenges are. But we’re going to fix our problems.”

I have nothing to add to what I wrote in January:

Ann [Althouse] missed what I’ve found to be Gregory’s most glaring weakness as a “tough” interviewer. He will sometimes ask what is supposed to sound like a tough question, only really it’s just a Gotcha! question. And then there would be no follow-up. None. Zilch.

It’s as though his tougher questions weren’t designed to elicit difficult truths from his guests, but rather to demonstrate how very clever David Gregory could be.

That’s not good TV. That’s just tiresome.

OK, I will add one thing. NBC is in a real bind here, because who is there better to replace Gregory? NBC’s bench is so shallow that he really is the best they’ve got to host TV’s longest-running program.

So the bad choices are to suffer the shame of canceling TV’s longest-running program, bringing in one of the D-listers from the MSNBC farm team, or keep Gregory as captain of the sinking ship.

Honestly, it couldn’t happen to a nicer group of shills.