MSNBC BETS ON CHRIS MATTHEWS
By Gintautas Dumcius
Media Nation Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Behind the well-hidden MSNBC press office and a security guard
who appears perfectly capable of breaking tall, lanky reporters in
two stands Chris Matthews, anchor and star of a network still
searching for itself and respectable ratings.
It is making a big push for both this week.
The battle of the broadcast television networks, who once
validated their news departments by gathering huge audiences
for the coverage of national political conventions, is long over. The
real media contest at this convention is capturing the smaller but
still prestigious and profitable cable news audience.
For long-time leader CNN, these are challenging times. Two
years ago Fox News Channel stole the audience lead CNN
amassed in the years before it had any competitors. Now
MSNBC, led by CNN’s former head, Rick Kaplan, is coming on
strong.
His strategy, Kaplan tells friends, is simple: stress content. But to
outside observers, it appears the strategy is as much built around
the old TV rule: that people watch people, not programs. The man
he hopes people will watch is Matthews MSNBC’s prime time tent-
pole just as Larry King was for CNN in its earliest days and Bill O’
Reilly was and still is for Fox. The tent pole has to be a big talent
who gets big numbers in primetime.
“MSNBC has bet the farm on Chris Matthews,” said Brian Stelter,
editor of TVNewser, a blog covering broadcast news on
mediabistro.com.
Stelter noted that MSNBC’s strategy is pinned on Matthews’s
style. “Some viewers are turned off by him, but many more tune in
just because of him. Matthews helps differentiate the network,” he
said in an e-mail exchange.
Matthews, 58, is bright, blustery and bombastic. On camera he
exudes an almost boyish enthusiasm for politics, where he spent
much of his early life as a speechwriter for President Jimmy
Carter and later as a top aide to the late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill,
when he was Speaker of the House.
Matthews has also made a name for himself with his loud and
fast mouth. But ask Matthews for a 10-minute interview and he
grimaces, as if 10 minutes are an eternity to a man who talks
faster than an Aaron Sorkin character.
This week Matthews is anchoring the network’s coverage of the
convention and also playing a version of his nightly talk show,
“Hardball,” with a panel of political experts, right-winger Joe
Scarborough, lefty California politico Willie Brown and journalists
Howard Fineman of Newsweek and Andrea Mitchell of NBC.
Prodded by Matthews, they review politics more as theater than
substance, but that’s the current TV talk show style.
Mitchell’s presence underlines a key asset for MSNBC: –
occasional appearances by NBC’s stable of news stars. Even
mega-stars Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric show up from time to
time.
South Boston bus driver John Carey said he’s normally a Fox
viewer, but during the convention he’s also watching MSNBC. He
likes Matthews, he said. “There are times when he makes you
forget he was a Tip O’Neil Democrat. That’s a good thing.”
Congresswoman Karen McCarthy (D-Missouri) was watching
Matthews' show and CNN at home in Kansas City while nursing a
broken foot. “I prefer MSNBC because its analysis is more
substantive, less political and less intrusive than CNN," she said.
News audiences are traditionally extremely slow to build, and no
one’s making any claims quite yet, but there was an air of quiet
confidence in MSNBC’s executive suite Monday when the ratings
for Sunday night showed Matthews and company edging Fox.
For its coverage of the Democratic convention, "Hardball" has
been expanded to five hours and is being broadcast from historic
Faneuil Hall, where Colonial-era Bostonians led protests against
British taxation.
Its giant tented set is sandwiched between the Salty Dog and
Plaza III restaurants. The show has been drawing enthusiastic
crowds, mostly tourists, Bush supporters wearing giant flip-flops
and a squad of $15-an-hour temps hired by CNN to hand out
buttons and fans with the network’s call letters.
After the credits roll, Matthews steps off the stage and talks to the
crowds packed between the set and the Salty Dog. He seems to
connect easily.
“Who’s for President Bush here?” he asks. “Anyone Republican?”
The crowd responds with a smattering of boos and applause.
“Very interesting,” he says.
Blocks away, inside the Fleet Center, surrounded by convention
guards in battle dress and black-clad SWAT teams, CNN anchors
its broadcast from an unprecedented location: a platform on the
convention floor. "Wolf Blitzer may be the most interviewed person
at the convention," observed one DNC volunteer.
But with its convention news staff reported to be only about half
what it was in 2000, CNN may have missed a greater opportunity
here. For MSNBC, this was show time.
More articles are available at Media Nation's website.
By Gintautas Dumcius
Media Nation Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Behind the well-hidden MSNBC press office and a security guard
who appears perfectly capable of breaking tall, lanky reporters in
two stands Chris Matthews, anchor and star of a network still
searching for itself and respectable ratings.
It is making a big push for both this week.
The battle of the broadcast television networks, who once
validated their news departments by gathering huge audiences
for the coverage of national political conventions, is long over. The
real media contest at this convention is capturing the smaller but
still prestigious and profitable cable news audience.
For long-time leader CNN, these are challenging times. Two
years ago Fox News Channel stole the audience lead CNN
amassed in the years before it had any competitors. Now
MSNBC, led by CNN’s former head, Rick Kaplan, is coming on
strong.
His strategy, Kaplan tells friends, is simple: stress content. But to
outside observers, it appears the strategy is as much built around
the old TV rule: that people watch people, not programs. The man
he hopes people will watch is Matthews MSNBC’s prime time tent-
pole just as Larry King was for CNN in its earliest days and Bill O’
Reilly was and still is for Fox. The tent pole has to be a big talent
who gets big numbers in primetime.
“MSNBC has bet the farm on Chris Matthews,” said Brian Stelter,
editor of TVNewser, a blog covering broadcast news on
mediabistro.com.
Stelter noted that MSNBC’s strategy is pinned on Matthews’s
style. “Some viewers are turned off by him, but many more tune in
just because of him. Matthews helps differentiate the network,” he
said in an e-mail exchange.
Matthews, 58, is bright, blustery and bombastic. On camera he
exudes an almost boyish enthusiasm for politics, where he spent
much of his early life as a speechwriter for President Jimmy
Carter and later as a top aide to the late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill,
when he was Speaker of the House.
Matthews has also made a name for himself with his loud and
fast mouth. But ask Matthews for a 10-minute interview and he
grimaces, as if 10 minutes are an eternity to a man who talks
faster than an Aaron Sorkin character.
This week Matthews is anchoring the network’s coverage of the
convention and also playing a version of his nightly talk show,
“Hardball,” with a panel of political experts, right-winger Joe
Scarborough, lefty California politico Willie Brown and journalists
Howard Fineman of Newsweek and Andrea Mitchell of NBC.
Prodded by Matthews, they review politics more as theater than
substance, but that’s the current TV talk show style.
Mitchell’s presence underlines a key asset for MSNBC: –
occasional appearances by NBC’s stable of news stars. Even
mega-stars Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric show up from time to
time.
South Boston bus driver John Carey said he’s normally a Fox
viewer, but during the convention he’s also watching MSNBC. He
likes Matthews, he said. “There are times when he makes you
forget he was a Tip O’Neil Democrat. That’s a good thing.”
Congresswoman Karen McCarthy (D-Missouri) was watching
Matthews' show and CNN at home in Kansas City while nursing a
broken foot. “I prefer MSNBC because its analysis is more
substantive, less political and less intrusive than CNN," she said.
News audiences are traditionally extremely slow to build, and no
one’s making any claims quite yet, but there was an air of quiet
confidence in MSNBC’s executive suite Monday when the ratings
for Sunday night showed Matthews and company edging Fox.
For its coverage of the Democratic convention, "Hardball" has
been expanded to five hours and is being broadcast from historic
Faneuil Hall, where Colonial-era Bostonians led protests against
British taxation.
Its giant tented set is sandwiched between the Salty Dog and
Plaza III restaurants. The show has been drawing enthusiastic
crowds, mostly tourists, Bush supporters wearing giant flip-flops
and a squad of $15-an-hour temps hired by CNN to hand out
buttons and fans with the network’s call letters.
After the credits roll, Matthews steps off the stage and talks to the
crowds packed between the set and the Salty Dog. He seems to
connect easily.
“Who’s for President Bush here?” he asks. “Anyone Republican?”
The crowd responds with a smattering of boos and applause.
“Very interesting,” he says.
Blocks away, inside the Fleet Center, surrounded by convention
guards in battle dress and black-clad SWAT teams, CNN anchors
its broadcast from an unprecedented location: a platform on the
convention floor. "Wolf Blitzer may be the most interviewed person
at the convention," observed one DNC volunteer.
But with its convention news staff reported to be only about half
what it was in 2000, CNN may have missed a greater opportunity
here. For MSNBC, this was show time.
More articles are available at Media Nation's website.
 | |  | |  |
