I'm trying to read Axios: "MSNBC will soon announce plans to move morning anchor Stephanie Ruhle to the 11 pm ET hour that Brian Williams turned into an elite destination, two sources familiar with the move tell Axios."
Did Brian Williams ever even achieve the comeback he needed? I didn't watch closely, but I don't even understand the claim that he created an "elite destination" out of the MSNBC 11 pm time slot.
It could mean that very few people watched. Is Axios snarky like that?
But "elite" doesn't mean just small — unless you're talking about type size. It means "exclusive, select" (OED):
1962 G. Murchie Music of Spheres ii. 24 The most elite of the elite new breeds grew powerful antigravity muscles and air gills called lungs.
1985 P. W. On & C. H. Persell in P. W. Cookson & C. H. Persell Preparing for Power i. 28 Janitors pick up the litter of the elite students and the dogs.
2014 G. Tholen Changing Nature of Graduate Labour Market ii. 45 Recruitment practices for elite graduate positions may not deliberately be unmeritocratic.
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39 comments:
I just think that... That their appeal is becoming more selective.
A more selective audience.
It just seems like basic marketing hype. They likely wouldn't say MSNBC was moving Stephanie Rhule to the slot destroyed by Brian Williams. Well, maybe they could if they didn't reserve such commentary for Fox News or when a man comes into prop-up ratings lost by a woman. It is Axios after all.
Anchors, huh. What a bunch of dimbulb phonies. How did "reading the news on television" ever become a high-status occupation?
If I'm not mistaken, Brian Williams' show finished behind Fox News running a recycling loop of Mike Lindell, the 'My Pillow' guy, and his 4 minute ads.
I guess that would put him in an 'elite' spot.
Quick poll: Did any Althouse readers ever watch one- Just One- hour of Brian Williams 11pm show?
Life imitates Spinal Tap.
Getting 'rewarded' with the 11pm slot on MSNBC these days, with no Trump, is akin to Stalin telling you that you are a loyal soldier to the Motherland, which is why we are sending you to oversee the Ekibastuz concentration camp in Kazakhstan.
Stephanie Ruhle will never be heard from again.
Harsh Pencil said...
I just think that... That their appeal is becoming more selective
Smell The Glove!
Just popping in to see how many responses would post before the first Spinal Tap reference and was pleased to see it close to the top. As for the straw poll I never watched ANY news show anchored by Williams before or after his self-immolation. Local news is barely tolerable and national newscasts have been worthless for years, predating Rathergate by a mile.
Who watched Lying Brian Williams??? Why, so you could get lied to by a liar who got caught?? Who watches MSNBC, the Progressive channel of choice?? You are a bigot if you don't!!!
gilbar said...
Harsh Pencil said...I just think that... That their appeal is becoming more selective
Smell The Glove!
What's wrong with being sexy?
What thing did Williams do to become an elite spot holder- I can’t remember.
I’m not sure if MSNBC is on my streaming service. It must be. Somewhere. I know some of the heads there because NBC runs endless commercials for MSNBC on Golf Channel.
My impression of the network is it is 50 percent minor league hockey team- the one where you send the players that didn’t work out but you need to free up room under the salary cap and 50 percent that room where you send the really bad teachers you need to fire but can’t because their union mandated hearings will take forever…
Dan Rather grumbles just loud enough to be heard, but not understood.
Axios figures that the reason MSNBC's viewership is so low is that there are fewer smart people, and by that logic, CNN's viewership is restricted to geniuses, I guess. You see, only a really intelligent and well educated person could swallow the stories based on CIA and FBI leaks. and those from the infra-government, whole.
BTW, the way they sell this crap to the mid wits who watch it is by stroking the egos of their viewers, like NPR, assuring them of their superior discernment in choosing to watch a serial liar and tool of the FBI like Rachael Maddow, the queen of their cult.
The difference between MSNBC and the Titanic? When the Titanic went down it had all its anchors.
I estimate that Temujin has save me more than 75 hours of work over the past year. I read a post, think of something I want to say, check what Temujin has said, see that he has said it, then don't bother to say it because Temujin said it.
I used the time I've saved to learn to play the French Horn.
I used the time I've saved to learn to play the French Horn
OMG this is funny.
Now think how rich your life could have been if you hadn’t wasted all that time with the french horn!
I kid…
I don't even understand the claim that he created an "elite destination" out of the MSNBC 11 pm time slot.
Maybe they're using turned-around hipster logic. Hipsters are elite because they are into things before they are cool. Ruhle is a reverse hipster who is elite because she is into the time slot after it was cool. (Of course, that assumes the time slot was actually cool at one time.)
Good Spinal Tap quote.
In the Joe Rogan interview of Jordan Peterson, Peterson talks about how Spinal Tap is one of the fundamental texts of western culture because so much refers back to it. The Simpsons is another, and Peterson mentioned a third, which I forget.
"Sorry, is that too low-effort peevish junk?"
Yeah, it kind of is.
Brian Williams is a very specific character with a distinctive story, and you could easily see it by clicking the "Brian Williams" tag on this post. Plus, your comment is the first comment on this thread, so that knocks it off track from the beginning and undercuts my work more severely. And why would you do that? Is it not bad faith? You know, every single post could begin with a low-effort jackass writing "Who cares?" or "Who's []?"
This is my blog, and it's always the case that if I write a post *I* care (about something). You need to track into that and add to the dynamic, not shit on the post.
In my younger days, I was vulnerable to getting pushed back by someone who heard something from me and reacted with "Who cares?" I remember the night Elvis died, and having heard it on the radio, I got out of bed and walked into the next room to tell 2 people "Elvis died." The answer I got was a contemptuous "Who cares?" and I was vulnerable enough to just feel embarrassed to care about such a thing. I did not have the courage to ground myself in caring about what I cared about. I wish I'd behaved differently then, and this blog is powered by a lifetime of restraint.
Althouse said...
"An "elite destination"?"
Elite? I thought Ruhles were for the little people?
Speaking of which, isn't Ruhle the go to video example of the media gushing over Avanatti?
TV programmers, even news channel programmers, always hope a new show will build a loyal audience over time. Unfortunately for Mr. Williams, this process seems to have worked in reverse, as he started strong in Dec. 2000 with about 2mm viewers; now down to about 950K viewers. So yeah, it appears Axios may be engaging in some snark.
" know some of the heads there because NBC runs endless commercials for MSNBC on Golf Channel. "
I stopped watching the Golf Channel for this reason, but I have drifted back, and the political ads for the Democrats, I mean the promos for MSNBC are far less now.
Possibly a voice-to-text issue: "an elided destination."
11 PM. (shakes head) Who stays up that late.
The 11 PM slot was an elite destination for Charley Rose on PBS. His guests (and perhaps his audience as well) were almost by definition members of the elite. What happened to that audience since then is hard to say. Maybe, Brian Williams being the closest thing to Charley Rose on TV since then -- White, male, well-spoken, well-connected, morally compromised -- the assumption is that he must have gotten Charley's audience. I don't think Christiane Amanpour has it. I had to google "CNN war slut" to find out her name.
Stephanie Ruhl seemed like the sane daughter who was able to go out on her own and escape Papa Joe and Mama Mika. Willie Geist was the bullied son who couldn't cut loose from the apron strings. Mike Barnicle and Donny Deutsch were the crazy, drunken or lecherous uncles who lived in the basement, and Claire McCaskill was the next-door lady who dropped in to gossip. Stephanie is still trying to pull off the cool chick thing, but it gets harder and harder to pull off.
she does fit the greater fool test
https://www.newsbusters.org/journalists/stephanie-ruhle
gutfeld is going to wipe the floor with her, still
Going up against Gutfeld's show? I'm pretty sure that's not a prize.
I’m glad to inform Axios that Greg Guttfeld owns that “elite destination” on Fox at 11:00 p.m. and he beat all other shows in that time slot.
Brian Williams never made it back to his former self after his lying about his experience in New Orleans while he was covering Katrina. . Why do people feel the need to say such stupid things in order to make themselves part of the story? It was a self-inflicted wound and he was banished from the NBC nightly news to MSNBC. Nothing on MSNBC is an “elite destination”.
Blogger MadisonMan said...
11 PM. (shakes head) Who stays up that late?
Stephanie Someone
What a sad end to a career… Williams goes from being a war correspondent to actually picking up a rifle and joining the house-to-house search and eradication of our enemy in Fallujah to schlepping off-stage of a barely watched fake news show.
Goodbye, Brian… we heartily eschew you.
Who still watches television? To find out, just watch the advertisements.
"What a sad end to a career . . . "
Oh, you mean Williams. I thought you meant twatshername.
“Imminent Supreme Court retirement?” ejaculated CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin earlier this month.
Hilarious!!
Sorry, I couldn't find a recent cafe post, and it was TOO good to pass up.
But "elite" doesn't mean just small — unless you're talking about type size. It means "exclusive, select"
Thanks to MSNBC, parents of Downs Syndrome children can take pride in their kids' elite status as students in special education.
I never really paid much attention to Brian Williams one way or the other. I thought it was rather silly of him to exaggerate some of his exploits. But I will always be grateful for his documentary "Journey to Normandy." My husband's relative was one of the veterans featured in it. The relative has since passed away.
Side note: Not seen in the documentary - our veteran giving Obama a scold, LOL!
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