The Day the TV Died..

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As upset and disappointed as I am about no longer being able to watch MSNBC on my standard cable lineup, I’ve encountered one very noticeable, perhaps positive, side-effect of the transition: I’m sure as hell watching a lot less television.

I remember about four years ago, my wife and I decided to shut off the television and it was one of the most refreshing and positive things we ever did for ourselves, our marriage, and our sense of overall well-being. Slowly, over the course of about 9-12 months or so, we slowly brought back television into our lives, although our viewing habits have never quite been the same. Prior to shutting off the tube back in 2003-2004, we watched mindless reality programs, MTV, and a few network dramas. More recently, this consumption was cut way back and limited mainly to political talkshows, the NFL, the NBA Playoffs, and the occassional episode of South Park, the Daily Show Now, and/or the Colbert Report.

Now that Chris and Keith on MSNBC are once again no longer fixtures of my evenings and Joe Scarborough and crew no longer join me as I get ready for my day each morning, there is suddenly a gaping chasm in my connection to the daily “goings on” of the 2008 Presidential Campaign. In many ways, this development isn’t too bad, as I have been experiencing some level of campaign fatigue lately anyway.

And there is another new “benefit” to the disappearance of MSNBC on my cable lineup. And that’s the addition of my new penpal and frequent blog commenter, Jim Hughes of Comcast. Since I posted my first comment on Comcast’s decision to pull MSNBC from its Standard lineup in the Boston area, Jim has been commenting on my blogs and emailing me back and forth with “answers” to some of my questions.

I am not sure what Jim’s position is at Comcast, but he seems to work in the PR shop, perhaps under former Romney Press Secretary Shawn Feddeman, who I had first cited as the possible GOP connection behind the decision to jettison the progressive-leaning MSNBC to digital while leaving wingnut FoxNews and spineless CNN available on standard cable. Jim’s comments and emails have been cordial beyond belief, and a quick web search tells me that he has been reaching out to a handful of other bloggers who have also discussed this topic in the last few months.

When he first responded, I was excited to reach someone at Comcast and finally get some straight answers about the decision to pull from MSNBC from standard cable, particularly the answer to the following question:

3) If Comcast’s motivation was not political, but instead to “ensur[e] that [y]our network is able to deliver the maximum benefit to the maximum number of customers,” why do CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC remain available in analog format?

With the ratings numbers I showed you, MSNBC outperforms CNBC hands down, all the time, outperforms FoxNews and CNN in certain demographics, and only trails CNN in the main demo by a few percentage points.

In other words, what I’m getting at is the fact that in your attempt to deliver the “maximum” benefit, you are shutting out a huge audience and your not doing the same to the analog viewers of FoxNews, CNN, or CNBC. Please explain.

If you’d like to see some of those ratings figures, click here.

A few days later I got a response from Jim, but it was hardly as substantial as I expected, given the specificity of my query:

Paul, sorry for the delay, I’ve been traveling. I had this question in mind as I explained how these kinds of decisions are driven by a combination of customer input and contractual obligations with programmers. Sorry for any confusion if I didn’t make that clear enough.

Now I’m not sure if I’m going to get any more explanation behind this direct question, but the response from Jim above, while polite, doesn’t seem to directly address why exactly FoxNews and CNN are still available to analog customers. Jim, if you’re still out there and would like to take on this question directly, we are all ears!

Until then, we can’t help but assume that there is another motive behind the move, otherwise the answers would be more direct. The facts that the person who runs the PR shop at Comcast in the Northeast is a frequent GOP campaign contributer, that during an election season a purely political network that provides a foil to the distortions and propaganda of FoxNews and toothlessness of CNN has been effectively silenced to a large population of the politically savvy-electorate, and that the cable provider, Comcast, can’t adequately explain why this move was made without invoking platitudes and circumlocutions, tells me that something still remains to be revealed about the true motivations behind this decision.

The Other Side to the Story: MSNBC Complicity?

Financial Basketcase?

For a moment, I’d like to dispel conspiracy theories and examine other possible motivations behind this move…

1) Despite my accusations and questions about political motivations for effectively cancelling MSNBC from standard cable, I also understand that generally speaking, most decisions that large corporate entities make are business decisions, not political decisions. Take the liberal radio network Air America for example. Although I’m not privy to 100% of the reasons why they have struggled with bankruptcy and other financial problems since their inception, even with airplay in supposedly liberal radio markets, an elementary analysis of their troubles would have one assume that if being liberal and progressive were more profitable, they wouldn’t have as many problems that they do. Certainly mismanagement has been part of the touble as well: the place has been revolving door of owners and executives since day one. Perhaps there really is a smaller market for liberal-leaning television and radio. There’s gotta be some reason why Rush Limbaugh is a multi-multi millionaire, while Air America radio hosts have been jumping the network like rats on a sinking ship.

2) Another possibility might be that Comcast recognized MSNBC’s growing popularity among consumers, driven by the cult following of Keith Olbermann’s Coundown program, and decided to pull the network from standard cable in order to charge higher fees to its customers in the digital format because they reasoned that the rabid followers might protest, but would ultimately give in to the increased fees due to their loyalty and appreciation for one of the few progressive voices on the air. Perhaps they formulated an algorithm that modeled the financial gains of charging increased fees against the PR backlash and potential losses from people like myself who are so disgusted by the whole thing that we’re willing to give up our beloved MSNBC out of principle. All television will be digital by February 2009, anyway, Comcast may have reasoned, and people will have little choice beyond that point anyway. And the fact that they will have gotten to shut down a progressive voice is just gravy, instead of the driving force behind the move.

My Other Unavailable Love...

3) A final argument in support of Comcast’s decision points not to the profitability of MSNBC, but instead to perhaps some of the financial demands the network had made of its local distributor, in this case Comcast. To provide some context on this issue, the NFL Network is currently engaged in a PR struggle over cable operators’ decisions to remove it from standard cable as well. Apparently cable operators contend that the NFL charges fees that make leaving it on standard cable cost-prohibitive. Perhaps MSNBC was attempting to leverage the increased popularity of Keith Olbermann and (Air America alum) Rachel Maddow in order to charge higher fees to Comcast, and Comcast pushed back by pulling it and covering their costs with increased “digital tier” fees from customers.

The only evidence I have on the issue of possible “MSNBC complicity” in this affair is the fact that I have sent numerous emails to MSNBC to inquire about the issue and haven’t heard back from anyone at the network at all. Specifically, I wrote emails to the following entities at MSNBC

viewerservices@msnbc.com: General customer service

letters@msnbc.com: general inquiries, etc.

countdown@msnbc.com: Keith Olbermann’s show

KOlbermann@msnbc.com: Keith Olbermann’s work email (this got kicked back as “undeliverable”)

dabrams@msnbc.com: Dan Abram’s work email (this got kicked back as “undeliverable”)

hardball@msnbc.com: Chris Matthew’s Hardball show

verdict@msnbc.com: Dan Abram’s show

joe@msnbc.com: Joe Scarborough’s show

The fact that I didn’t receive a response from six different entities at MSNBC tells me that either they have horrible customer service, or that they too have something to hide. If one searches the web, one can find plenty of Comcast-lambasting, but I haven’t seen evidence of many people attempting to connect to MSNBC directly about this issue. I would for one, would like to hear what MSNBC feels about losing a segment of their loyal audience and what their view is on the motivations behind this move.

Political Move?

Yesterday I posted a discovery I had made about one of the Comcast executives behind the yanking of MSNBC from Standard Cable to the “digital only” tier in the Boston television market.

Specifically, the Comcast’s Vice President of Public Relations here in the northeast is a woman by the name of Shawn Feddeman, who prior to running PR for Comcast, was the Press Secretary for former GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney while he was Governor of Massachusetts. She was also a campaign contributor to to Romney’s failed presidential bid while serving as head of PR for Comcast in New England. I felt that this revelation was further evidence that Comcast’s decision to pull the network from its analog package was politically motivated.

Well, apparently my post made the rounds and not long thereafter I received a response from another executive at Comcast. While I appreciate the attempt to provide some clarity on the issue, the executive’s response only sparked further questions on my part.

Below I will provide that executive’s response, as well as my follow-up questions to him. Hopefully we will soon receive some answers that make some sense.

Hi Paul. Jim Hughes from Comcast’s Boston office here. As a fan of Hardball and Countdown myself, I can tell you for sure that this was not about politics — it was about ensuring that our network is able to deliver the maximum benefit to the maximum number of customers. And as you may have seen in the press, we’ve already started delivering the benefits — we announced the launch of seven new HD channels here in Mass. — Disney HD, ABC Family HD, TLC HD, AMC HD, Science Channel HD, TMC (The Movie Channel) HD and Showtime 2 HD — last week, and more are on the way. A single analog channel takes up as much space on our network as 10 digital channels, or 3 HD channels, and this change is allowing us to strike an appropriate balance between our analog and digital offerings. As for the price issue you bring up, you’re right — digital cable service requires a box-rental fee. This is the fee that we waived for a year for affected customers. And while other TV providers here and elsewhere in the country are seeing the growing consumer preference for digital TV and dropping analog service altogether, we are committed to delivering a low-cost analog option for our remaining customers who want it.

And below, you will find my response to Jim Hughes:

Hi Jim,

Thanks for reading and writing in to Monkeyinmymind.com.

While I appreciate you laying out Comcast’s plans to deliver more HD programming, and also explaining how analog channels occupy more “space” than their digital counterparts, your response still doesn’t quite answer exactly why MSNBC was chosen out of all the cable news channels to be ejected from analog into digital-only format.

To provide some context to this issue, I am aware that if one receives a digital programming package, one still generally receives access to analog versions of those digital programs (now excepting MSNBC, of course). For example, I was over at another Comcast subscriber’s home this weekend and noticed that while they had access to ESPN HD, HBO HD, and CNN HD, this person still had access to the analog versions of those channels. Why doesn’t this hold true for MSNBC?

I love the picture and quality of HD programming as much as anyone else, but I wasn’t aware that this was a “choose or lose” proposition when it comes to mainstays on the cable programming spectrum like MSNBC. As of today (and until February 17, 2009), the default television format is not yet digital so consumers like myself and many thousands of others shouldn’t be forced into converting to digital prematurely.

To that end, I was hoping you could provide additional clarity on the following questions:

1) What other channels besides MSNBC were removed from analog format in order to be digital only (I haven’t noticed anything else missing from the lineup)?

2) What type of Nielsen ratings did these other channels earn?

3) If Comcast’s motivation was not political, but instead to “ensur[e] that [y]our network is able to deliver the maximum benefit to the maximum number of customers,” why do CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC remain available in analog format?

This move smacks as a double standard, especially when one compares the ratings that each of these channels earn. Please note the following ratings numbers over this last weekend, comparing all of the cable news networks:

You will notice that while MSNBC trails FoxNews and CNN (only slightly) in one demographic, it outperforms Fox and CNN in the 25-54 demographic, and outperforms CNBC in all demographics.

Live + Same Day Weekend Ratings
Cable News Ratings August 2, 2008
P2+ Total Day
FNC – 699,000 viewers
CNN – 467,000 viewers
MSNBC – 420,000 viewers
CNBC – 132,000 viewers
HLN – 263,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,033,000 viewers
CNN – 657,000 viewers
MSNBC – 548,000 viewers
CNBC – 262,000 viewers
HLN – 270,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 169,000 viewers
CNN – 145,000 viewers
MSNBC – 213,000 viewers
CNBC – 68,000 viewers
HLN – 103,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 178,000 viewers
CNN – 167,000 viewers
MSNBC – 288,000 viewers
CNBC – 134,000 viewers
HLN – 101,000 viewers

Again, thanks for your forthright answers.

In order for many of us to believe that this decision was NOT politically motivated, answers to questions like mine would be sincerely appreciated.