Keith puts away fears of the Comcast merger
His comments on a DKos diary about it.
"I can only address one part of this with any authority.
Those of you who've posted about Comcast meaning the end of my show or Rachel's can, I think, relieve yourselves of such concerns.
Reports from tv trade publications have charted the finances of MSNBC over the last few years. When Countdown started seven years ago next month the operation was losing a lot of money. By 2005, largely through advertising on Countdown, we were at about break-even. In 2006 we started to make a small profit. By 2007 it was reportedly around $100 million. The 2009 estimate was twice that, and I don't think that correctly gauged the profit off Rachel's show.
We are, despite what the Right would like to believe, an ATM. All previous incarnations of MSNBC - including the Fox Lite stuff of 2002-03 - were financial disasters. Guess which MSNBC a company like Comcast wants to be buying?
Whatever else you think of these guys, they are not in the habit of saying "a billion in profit over the next five years? Who needs it! Cancel the shows that generate it! (Oh, and let's keep paying both of their salaries, too)."
If you want to argue the other points of the Senator's stand, have at - you can understand why I need to recuse myself. But the "they'll-kill-Keith-and-Rachel" stuff is an understandable but groundless fear."
"As I Said To My Masters in 2003...
...if you think you're going to steal the right wing, delirious and delusional audience away from Fox, you're going to lose a lot of money finding out that Fox is not a television news operation, but a political sub-party. You cannot out-Right them - their success is predicated on being exactly on the line separating crazy from chaos. If you are just as Right as they are, they will win on incumbency. If you are not as Right as they are, you will still be dismissed as liberal.
Do you think Glenn Beck's audience quadrupled because he got four times as crazy on Fox as he was on CNN Headline News? Do you think some rival right wing tv network could hire Beck away without most of his viewers saying "you have left our church, you are a heathen - what time is Hannity on?"
Despite the puerile rantings of Mr. O'Reilly and his colleagues, GE is not run by a bunch of leftists. It is run by a bunch of businessmen.
I can't speak to Murdoch "buying Comcast's share" but why is the risk any greater that he'd buy Comcast's share, than that he would have bought GE's 100% share a year ago?"
"I can only address one part of this with any authority.
Those of you who've posted about Comcast meaning the end of my show or Rachel's can, I think, relieve yourselves of such concerns.
Reports from tv trade publications have charted the finances of MSNBC over the last few years. When Countdown started seven years ago next month the operation was losing a lot of money. By 2005, largely through advertising on Countdown, we were at about break-even. In 2006 we started to make a small profit. By 2007 it was reportedly around $100 million. The 2009 estimate was twice that, and I don't think that correctly gauged the profit off Rachel's show.
We are, despite what the Right would like to believe, an ATM. All previous incarnations of MSNBC - including the Fox Lite stuff of 2002-03 - were financial disasters. Guess which MSNBC a company like Comcast wants to be buying?
Whatever else you think of these guys, they are not in the habit of saying "a billion in profit over the next five years? Who needs it! Cancel the shows that generate it! (Oh, and let's keep paying both of their salaries, too)."
If you want to argue the other points of the Senator's stand, have at - you can understand why I need to recuse myself. But the "they'll-kill-Keith-and-Rachel" stuff is an understandable but groundless fear."
"As I Said To My Masters in 2003...
...if you think you're going to steal the right wing, delirious and delusional audience away from Fox, you're going to lose a lot of money finding out that Fox is not a television news operation, but a political sub-party. You cannot out-Right them - their success is predicated on being exactly on the line separating crazy from chaos. If you are just as Right as they are, they will win on incumbency. If you are not as Right as they are, you will still be dismissed as liberal.
Do you think Glenn Beck's audience quadrupled because he got four times as crazy on Fox as he was on CNN Headline News? Do you think some rival right wing tv network could hire Beck away without most of his viewers saying "you have left our church, you are a heathen - what time is Hannity on?"
Despite the puerile rantings of Mr. O'Reilly and his colleagues, GE is not run by a bunch of leftists. It is run by a bunch of businessmen.
I can't speak to Murdoch "buying Comcast's share" but why is the risk any greater that he'd buy Comcast's share, than that he would have bought GE's 100% share a year ago?"