The First 30-Minute Network Newscast

In a good number of these cases, the teams are clamoring for new stadiums with government help — see the New York Islanders, Phoenix Coyotes, Sacramento Kings and potentially the Buffalo Bills.  New government funded arenas are controversial even in the best of times.  With state and local governments scrambling to keep the lights on, can these teams count on local governments to help keep them in the current market. Or, in the case of the Islanders and Kings, will they be moving to (or in the case of the Kings back to) Kansas City, a town with an largely empty arena?

By most counts, the WNBA has never made money and, if it did, it never made much.  The collapse of the Houston Comets this year was a black eye for the one women’s professional sports team leagues that has lasted for more than a few years.  If the NBA owners decide to plug on the league or if a number of the teams go the way of the Comets, what does this say about whether the United States will ever be able to support professional women’s team leagues even after all of the successes of Title IX and women’s college team athletics.

A couple of years ago, CNBC ran an interesting documentary titled “NASCAR Gold, “ trumpeting the league’s rise from a regional favorite to a national powerhouse.  Now, NASCAR even is in trouble with U.S. automakers in bankruptcy, declining sponsorships, lower attendance and shrinking television rations.  While you can blame the first two on the economy, as Michael Hiestand, the TV sports writer for USA Today, has said more than once, it doesn’t cost you much to sit on your couch and watch the race.  CNBC regognized this last week with a new documentary that looked at NASCAR’s troubles.  The thing that is even scarier for the association and the France family is that the situation will get worse before it gets better.  NASCAR.com wrote recently about whether there will be a future for the two feeder series — the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series — with lots of cars running without sponsors and teams laying off crew and pinching pennies.  Is this a temporary retreat for NASCAR or has the NASCAR bubble popped — with sponsors and fans?

1. Initial polling gives a mixed message. According to a USA Today/Gallup poll, Republicans’ views of Palin have improved since her announcement, while the view of Independents and Democrats towards the Alaska governor have dropped.  A majority (53%) also believe media coverage of her has been unfair.  The numbers are not great, but compared to the doom and gloom scenarios that the political punditry on the Republican side of the aisle have been putting forth (see for example Peggy Noonan, Mort Kondracke and others’ comments), it doesn’t look like this was Palin’s Mark Sanford moment, at least for Republican voters.

That said, Republican candidates in key 2009 gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia have been skittish as to whether they will ask Palin to campaign for them.  I don’t see how Palin helps Chris Christie (+12 vs. Gov. Jon Corzine in the most recent Rasmussen poll)  in the Garden State.  As for Virginia, Palin could be helpful in rural areas where Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate, polled very well in the primaries.  But does Bob McDonnell (+6 in the most recent Public Policy Poling (D) poll)  want to risk a anti-Palin backlash in the vote rich, blue northern Virginia suburbs?

2. The Vanity Fair piece by Todd Purdum may have backfired. On an initial read, the piece was devastating, even for people who were sympathetic to Palin.  But on second read, the piece read less of an investigative piece and more of what it really was, a thinly sourced hit piece by disgruntled McCain staffers.  When both Media Matters and Bill Kristol agree on something, it means either hell has frozen over or there is some truth to the argument that the piece was unfair.

3. Palin will not be moving to television anytime soon. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough made a bit of a splash on Mediaite by stating his opinion that Palin would end up on Fox News Channel in Greta van Susteren’s current slot.  I think that won’t happen and the evidence from Felix Gillette of  the New York Observer is that agents are not clamoring for her services.  That is prolly smart.  After Palin’s recent feud with David Letterman, I doubt many Hollywood stars would show up on Palin’s couch to discuss their latest project, and I doubt Palin would want to host a weekly show on any of the cable news channels (Fox News Channel or otherwise), much less a daily one.  (That said, should MSNBC add her, I would LOVE to see the hand-off between Palin and either Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann on a nightly basis.)  If she wants to be an evangelist for the conservative wing of the Republican Party, she can’t be tied down with a TV show or even a regular analyst gig.

Yes, I know that Mike Huckabee has a show on FNC (a show I’ve watched all of once so I can’t really comment if it is any good), but, unlike Palin, he needs the show to keep himself a viable candidate for 2012.

However, if we are to take Palin at her word that she needs to make money to pay her legal bils and raise her family, she can prolly make more by giving 3-4 speeches a month at $50,000 a pop and she doesn’t have to worry about the vagaries of hosting a cable news show where she is discussing health care one night and the custody of Michael Jackson’s kids the next.

Long story short, I think it is too early to figure out what Palin will do in 2012 (I don’t think she knows either), but in the short term  she will likely be helpful to some Republican candidates (I don’t buy the campaigning for conservative Democrats for a minute), but blow up in the face of others.

In short, we haven’t seen the last of her — for better or for worse.

UPDATE: Palin weighs in on climate change legislation in an op-ed in today’s The Washington Post.

Admiral Roughead speech at Ogilvy PR

In short, MSNBC promotes its victory over CNN in the advertiser friendly 25-54 demo in prime time.  CNN attempts to change to measurement metrics — again — to claim they are number one.  (And not for the first time — CNN was happy to promote their lead in total viewers until they lost it to Fox and then claimed the real metric was viewers in the 25-54 demo, until they started losing to both Fox and MSNBC.)

Mediaite also examines the ads the two channels have taken out.  By the way, as they point out, no matter how they spin it, they both finish far behind Fox News Channel in both total viewers and in the 25-54 demo.

Now, of course, all of this will prolly change in July as CNN has riden the death of Michael Jackson to its highest ratings since the Democratic primaries.  That said, the cable channels will run out of Michael Jackson stories soon.  Right? (Oh please, oh please, oh please — stop the insanity!)

This coming Tuesday, June 30, Ogilvy PR will hold its second lecture in the National Security Lecture series.  We’ll post some of the hightlights on this blog following the event so stay tuned.

I cannot judge how effective the special was, in that, like apparently the vast majority of Americans, I found something better to watch last night during the time slot.  I also chose sleep over the follow-up on “Nightline.”

But, I do know that the program didn’t get low ratings because ABC slipped it on with little warning.  The network promoted the special heavily — including an interview with the President on “Good Morning America.”  It was helped in the promotion by the Republican National Committee, who after being rebuffed in buying ads on the show (ABC as a network does not accept advocacy ads so they were not treating the RNC any different than other political group) charged that the program would be an infomerical for the administration’s health care plan.  The RNC also went after a member of the Obama administration — Linda Douglass — who used to work at ABC and the participation of ABC’s Dr. Timothy Johnson, who they tried to portray as a longtime advocate of universal, government run health care.  Those charges were picked up in the political media and the media about the media and the complaints were echoed regularly on Fox News.

So was the Republican campaign successful in deterring Americans from watching or was there something else involved?  My guess is the latter.

The timing certainly didn’t help.  But, there is one other factor there that I think needs to be taken into account.  If you look at the ratings for presidential news conferences and appearance of the president and the vice president on various news shows, you will see they have been on a downward path since the inauguration.

Could it simply be that America’s fascination with politics (as seen by the higher ratings during the presidential campaign through the inauguration) has ended and we are back the same level of blah that we were in as recently as two years ago?

I’ve been cynical that the civil discussion can lead to ratings success, but Rothenberg makes a number of important points and a rather impassioned case that is worth reading.