Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, says there’s something fishy about Tuesday’s ratings for the Fox News Channel, which were up significantly from a day earlier when Fox News debuted its new schedule. And he wants an investigation.“Monday we had a really good day in the key demographic. On the night that Fox News debuted their three shows, we either tied or beat them in those hours,” Griffin said at a briefing, according to TVNewser.“Tuesday — you guys should be doing some investigations; I have never seen it in all my years of cable — same overnight, same everything. And they doubled their ratings in a day? It is impossible.” Griffin continued, “I have never seen it. They did election-night numbers in the demo Tuesday.”
It’s entertaining because Griffin there is accusing Nielsen of deliberately altering the ratings in thesecond tier of news networks (cable news does not have the same reach as network news). Which would be one heck of a story, if true …if. Of course, if it were true then it would have leaked by now. People tend to do that sort of thing, when money is involved. And money is involved: Nielsen ratings figure in advertising fees.
Anyway, two takeaways:
- You’d think that a guy in charge of a television network that reports on the affairs of the day would not need to ask other groups to do news investigations.
- MSNBC’s problem is not that the dogs do not like the dog food. It’s that they’re trying to sell dog food to non-dogs*.
