For exhibiting such a horrid set of personal behaviors, he is of course awarded an hour-long, prime time show on cable television's most biased "news" channel, just as similar oafs like Janeane Garafalo and Al Franken were initially given their own radio talk shows on the now-bankrupt and deceased Air America. The American left always awards the dimmest bulbs among them - that's how Al Gore became Pope of the Church of Global Warming, after all.
And as always happens when the American left puts one of its most pathological dimwits on full display to the public in the media, the ratings go to hell. It happened with Air America, it happened with Chris Matthews, who currently hosts the single lowest-rated prime time show on any cable "news" network, it has happened with every leftist radio talk show host who has ever been given a national stage, and it is now happening to Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow and the rest of the uniformly left-wing prime time contingent at MSNBC.
It has been obvious for years now that MSNBC cannot hope to compete in any meaningful way with Fox News - Fox now out-draws MSNBC consistently by about a 4 to 1 margin in both total audience and the 18-49 demographic that is so critical to advertisers - so obvious in fact that no one even really bothers to list Fox among MSNBC's ratings rivals anymore, choosing to focus instead on the race for a very distant second place between MSNBC, CNN and even CNN Headline News. It has been widely reported this week that MSNBC's uniformly leftist prime time lineup has now fallen behind a more balanced CNNHN, an incredible feat of incompetent management rivaled in modern times only by CNN's dramatic fall from grace, and Toyota's quality control process.
The numbers are well-documented and undeniable, yet Olberman, on his program Friday night, did what he always does when faced with an embarrassing truth: he lied about it, pretending that his ratings had in fact increased, and viciously attacking everyone who had reported otherwise. This never fails. Lacking the slightest ability to engage any opponent on a factual, rational basis, he simply lashes out with personal attacks, apparently clinging to the Jack Bauer theory that if he just yells louder, he will be believed. You can find a clip of it here - I'm not going to waste time quoting the moron.
This phenomenon of left-wing programs on television and radio losing their ratings once their hate-filled, beligerent, logic-and-truth-devoid message becomes clear is not limited to talk shows. It also happens in comedies and dramas on network and cable TV that decide they have to start including preachy liberal messaging in their scripts. The landscape of TV history is littered with shows that started out popular and garnering huge ratings but then failed when they decided to become "socially relevant".
You look at the most popular, longest-running shows in recent TV history, and you find that they have consistently stuck to their original formulas, and refused to go down this preachy leftist path. CSI is the most obvious one that comes to mind, but you can also look at NCIS, Lost, The Sopranos, and many others.
The most obvious current show that is destined for the ash heap of preachy leftist history? Bones. I really enjoy this show, but it has in the last two seasons become extremely blatant in its anti-religious, pro-liberal biases, going out of its way to have its main characters treat anyone who expresses any sort of religious thought as blithering, superstitious boobs. This is a formula for a steady decline in ratings and ultimate cancellation at some point in the near future in a country in which around 90% of the population expresses a belief in God, and more than 50% regularly attend church.
But back to Olberman and the cable news wars. The reality here is that there is now really only one cable news network that is in any way relevant, and that is Fox News. Fox now regularly out-draws its three "competing" networks combined, both in total audience and in the critical demographic. The reason for this is obvious: Fox truly is fair and balanced. Americans crave balanced news reporting, and continue to flock to Fox in increasing numbers every year.
Liberals squeal like stuck pigs when they hear someone say that, but it's a true statement. Fox, in its news reporting, goes out of its way to give its viewers boths sides of each issue, providing a breath of fresh air from the tired, old, consistently liberal network news operations. Even in its talk show lineup, Fox always strives for balance in its guest bookings, although those on the left are increasingly reluctant to participate, given that they invariably look like senseless morons when attempting to debate an issue with any competent conservative.
Early on, MSNBC made an effort to emulate the balance that Fox has now provided its viewers for almost two decades, but the liberal bias of its on-air talent continued to bleed through in their reporting. As it and CNN consistently began to lose to Fox in the ratings, lefties at these networks and across the country began to lash out at Fox as being nothing but a right-wing operation. Management at MSNBC finally so convinced itself that this was the case that they decided the only way to compete with a right-wing operation was to establish a pure left-wing operation.
We've all seen the results of this self-deceiving decision: a massive ratings decline as viewers flee in droves away from the hate-filled leftist screeds delivered nightly by Olberman, Madow, et al.
The great thing about Olberman's dishonest, delusional self-defense last night where conservatives are concerned is that it is a clear indication that he and his management at MSNBC still do not grasp the real nature of their problem, and are thus doomed to slide further and further into utter and complete irrelevancy. The reality is that the people who run MSNBC are no different than the management at any other liberal news organ in this country, all of which continue to see steady declines in their ability to attract viewers, listeners or readers: They are so liberally biased in their own minds that they would rather run a failed, leftist news operation than try to survive by presenting a more balanced product.
At the end of the day, what Keith Olberman really is is the poster child for the slow-motion suicide of this country's left-leaning news media. It's a role he was truly born to play.
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