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August 30 MSNBC.com Sets Single-Day Records With Katrina Coverage I've had more than a few emails asking why I haven't posted on what is easily the worst natural disaster to strike the US in many years...Hurricane Katrina. I've been rather busy and doing a lot of traveling. I'm currently on my way back to Los Angeles on Amtrak from Northern California...luckily I got on a WiFi enabled train.
MSNBC.com registered 9 million video plays (via MSN Video), and 2 million live streams of coverage...one of only two news networks offerng live streams (CBSNews.com was the other). Incredible interest in this tragic story that is still unfolding.
In comparison, MSNBC TV averaged 1 million viewers in Primetime on Sunday. Monday's numbers aren't available yet...they will be later this afternoon.
My thoughts and prayers are with those impacted in the north central gulf coast. Maybe next time more people will heed the call to evacuate. It is truly better safe than sorry.
Now...I need to go visit the Cafe Car. ;-)
Quote MSNBC.com Sets Single-Day Records With Katrina Coverage July 15 Happy Birthday MSNBC!It was 9 years ago today that the joint venture between NBC News & Microsoft, MSNBC, went live. It has been a long struggle for this cable network in shifting political sands. Who would have thought, then, that Faux News would be where it is today.
For 8 long years MSNBC TV was saddled with leadership that couldn't, or wouldn't find a unique voice for the channel. Various NBC News talent reportedly despised being on MSNBC. Jealousies flared. Poltics ensued. A year and a half ago that changed, symbolically, with the removal of then MSNBC President Erik Sorenson. His replacement, a former ABC News Producer and CNN President, was Rick Kaplan.
Since Rick Kaplan took over, spirits have risen...even if ratings have not. The overall feeling is that the worst is behind MSNBC TV. MSNBC's two newest products, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Situation with Tucker Carlson have both received wide praise and accolades from critics. However these two shows have been overshadowed by the Queen Bloviator herself, Nancy Grace who airs on CNN Headline News (what an oxymoron). I think of her as a female Bill O'Reilly. Do people really want to watch that crap? Guess so. All the same...it took Bill O'Reilly a few years to really find an audience. The feeling is that MSNBC is doing things right finally and the audience will come eventually. An interesting twist on the ratings game...during the London Bombing coverage, nearly 60% of MSNBC's audience was in the coveted 25-54a demographic. Much much higher than CNN or Fox News. MSNBC's audience tends to skew younger...which is great in the long term for audience growth and in the short term for reaping revenue.
On the web side; the last four months has seen MSNBC.com has beat CNN.com. MSNBC.com last month came in with 24M users, while CNN.com came up with 20M. Just for kicks, FoxNews.com (don't worry, I used "No Follow" for this link) had 5.6M users. A lot of news organizations are targeting MSNBC.com with renewed resources & a new sustained effort. CNN.com just introduced free video (a major blunder of theirs in the past) supported by advertising. CBSNews.com announced a new revamp of their site with new free video and an effort to build a 24 hour broadband news network online. MSNBC.com is working hard at developing new site features and services for the future, some of them powered by new Microsoft technology. The future is bright for MSNBC.com.
So, Happy Birthday MSNBC! May the next 9 years be bright!
Related: Reuters article on new NBC News/MSNBC synergy and how it improved their London Bombing coverage.
June 16 Top eight reasons to watch Hardball on MSNBCDelivered by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton no less. haha Quote Top eight reasons to watch Hardball - Hardball with Chris Matthews - MSNBC.com February 25 Talking about Connected: BuzzMachine's Jeff JarvisThis is pretty cool...MSNBC's Connected has booked BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis to analyze events from his home live on MSNBC via MSN Messenger's Video Conversation service. The video has been posted below and Jeff Jarvis talks about the logistics behind vlogging from his home.
Quote Jackson's Junction: Connected: BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis January 10 MSNBC Live goes wireless via SmartVideo!
If you have a Windows Mobile powered Smartphone or Pocket PC, visit http://www.smartvideo.com/ces05/ces05.htm to get a free 30day trial of SmartVideo. Some of you will note that Sprint PCS has long offered this capability with their PCS service available on certain phones with the Java application. This new offering is exceptional in that it bypasses the carriers. Windows Mobile users are not longer tied to their carriers like a leash. I believe this is announcement portends the growing power of the Windows Mobile userbase and the developing wireless ecosystem around us. I've been playing around with it...you do get ads from time to time before a stream starts, and naturally, you see the ads that are broadcasted live on the network you are watching. In my flash-tests, the live stream on MSNBC was about 30-45 seconds behind my cable broadcast. Not bad! Framerate was very high...in the 15-20fps range. Audio was mono and obviously sacrificed to an extent for good framerates. An acceptable tradeoff...especially considering most of the SmartVideo users will likely be streaming over a GPRS network that can't handle more than 40kbps. In my last 15 minutes of testing, I had absolutely zero buffering. Granted, I'm on Verizon's industry leading CDMA 2000 1xRTT network. Your milage may vary. I'm looking forward to being mobile, getting an MSNBC News Alert via MSN Alerts and then flipping over to SmartVideo to watch live coverage of whatever news is breaking. This is the promise of a Microsoft-enpowered mobility industry. As some of my friends know, my cable company doesn't carrry The Weather Channel in my location. (!) It is utterly hilarious that I'm able to get The Weather Channel live on my Smartphone before I can get it on my cable system. Talk about shakeup. I can't wait for IPTV (but that is another blog post on another day)! It costs $12.95/mo for the basic service...which is all the news & sports outlets. An additional $4.95/mo premium can be added for children's programming. For a list of compatible Windows Mobile devices visit http://www.smartvideo.com/devices.html. Press Release on the new NBC Universal & Weather Channel agreements that SmartVideo made: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=111316&p=irol-newsArticle&t=Regular&id=659984& December 21 Oldie but goodie: Paul Moyer & Ann Martin cat fight!Okay, so this isn't a cable news post...but I was deliciously shocked to listen to this bit of audio. April Winchell was sent this clip, date unknown, between these two news anchors getting a little hot under the collar during a commercial break at KABC. Paul Moyer and Ann Martin are both very well known in Los Angeles. Paul Moyer has been at KNBC since 1992. Ann Martin works at KCBS since 1994, ironically as you'll feel after the clip, with Harold Greene. [Hat tip: LA Observed] Quote April Winchell: December, 2004 December 20 MSNBC 2004 Video MontageHere is a neat video montage of events throughout the year. MSNBC is airing this in commercial packages on-air. It is 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Check it out and let me know what you think!
December 02 "I'll see you...along the way."Yesterday, Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News signed off for the last time. Over 15M viewers watched, the highest audience for the #1 rated NBC Nightly News in 7 years. Quote
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