Big changes coming at MSNBC

Headlines about big changes at MSNBC are the kind of thing that make me think of nightmarish scenarios like an entire lineup consisting of Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and Rita Cosby, all screeching about misssing white women.

Dan Abrams, of all people, is taking over the network, and while the three stooges cited above ought perhaps to update their resumes, it looks like Sir Keith is not just staying on, but is emblematic of the kind of changes NBC wants to make:

But there are bigger changes coming to MSNBC, especially in prime time, where the network will apparently be dropping some of its talk-show lineup in favor of more taped reports. That change is likely to take place as soon as the next couple of months. "I think we're going to have some program changes this summer," Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in a telephone interview. "Prime time is the focus. That's where the money is."

Mr. Capus said he would like the channel to change its identity in ways that would distinguish it from its two chief competitors, the Fox News Channel and CNN.

"All three channels are doing a variation of headline news all day and talk shows at night," Mr. Capus said. "We need to get away from that."

[snip]

One senior NBC executive said, "There will probably be one to two hours of long-form taped shows every night in prime time." The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because the decisions were not final and would affect some of the prime-time hosts, like Rita Cosby, Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough, now working on the channel.

Two of the channel's hosts, Chris Matthews of "Hardball" and Keith Olbermann of "Countdown," clearly will not be affected, because MSNBC's managers consistently cite those programs as long-sought breakthroughs.

"We've just got to build on those two shows," Mr. Griffin said, sitting beside Mr. Abrams in the conference room at MSNBC. "It's critical. We have to capitalize on their success."

[snip]

Mr. Olbermann, meanwhile, has picked up both viewers and some strong word-of-mouth for his irreverent style. His show is up 36 percent since January in that 25-54 group. MSNBC points out that during the same period, CNN and Fox have been down that those hours.

Of course, a little bump goes a long way at MSNBC, where ratings have been mainly dwarfish over the years, especially next to Fox News. Even with Mr. Olbermann's surge, for example, he draws well less than half of what Bill O'Reilly of Fox does in that age group — and only a fifth of Mr. O'Reilly's total viewer number.

But Mr. Griffin noted that MSNBC's two big shows were going in the right direction now, gaining viewers, while most of those on Fox and CNN were showing declines. CNN especially is a target of opportunity for MSNBC, Mr. Griffin said, because Mr. Olbermann has beaten that network on many nights recently.

I could live very nicely without HARDBALL, but it's nice to see that the suits at MSNBC understand what they have in Keith Olbermann. Now if they can just move him to 9:00 so that I can watch the reruns of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and then Countdown in its entirety, well, I may never get anything done around the house again.

UPDATE: Brent Budowski has more at HuffPo.