Everything about Msnbc totally explained
MSNBC is a 24-hour cable news channel based in the
United States and available in
Canada. Its name is a combination of
Microsoft Network and
NBC.
A separate company,
msnbc.com, is the news website for the NBC News family, featuring original stories and video as well as content from NBC News and partners such as
The New York Times,
Newsweek and
The Washington Post.
Two partnerships with the name MSNBC were founded in 1996 by
Microsoft and
General Electric's NBC unit, which is now
NBC Universal. Although Microsoft and NBC shared operations of MSNBC cable at its founding, it was announced on December 23, 2005, that NBC Universal would purchase a majority stake in the television network, which left Microsoft with 18%. The two companies remain 50-50 partners in msnbc.com. MSNBC, like sister channel
CNBC, shares the
NBC logo of a
rainbow peacock.
History
Development
Microsoft invested $220 million for a 50% share of the cable network, while MSNBC and Microsoft would share the cost of a $200 million newsroom based in
Redmond, Washington. NBC supplied the space with an 18 month old
America's Talking network.
Roger Ailes, then president of
America's Talking, was passed over when NBC executives were looking for someone to run their new cable news operation. Ailes subsequently joined
News Corporation as president of the newly-formed CNN rival,
Fox News Channel.
MSNBC's launch
MSNBC was launched on July 15, 1996. The first show, which was anchored by
Jodi Applegate, broadcast a lineup of news, interviews, and opinions. During the day, rolling news coverage continued with
The Contributors, a show that featured
Ann Coulter and
Laura Ingraham, as well as interactive programming coordinated by Applegate,
John Gibson, and
John Seigenthaler, Jr. Stories were generally longer and more detailed than the stories running on CNN at the time.
MSNBC originally demonstrated the interactive value of the
internet. The network's first slogan was
It's Time to Get Connected, and e-mail addresses and phone numbers were displayed regularly.
Primetime featured an hour-long interview program called
Internight (which showcased the stars of NBC News), followed by the network's flagship newscast,
The News with Brian Williams, and
The Site, a show about the internet and computers co-hosted by
Soledad O'Brien and a computer-generated character played by
Leo Laporte. The first
Internight included an interview with President
Bill Clinton, who took questions from callers and e-mailers. Other shows that made use of the internet included
News Chat featuring Mary Kathleen Flynn, and a look into the past with
Time & Again, anchored by
Jane Pauley.
Black Entertainment Television host
Ed Gordon also contributed to the new network by hosting the Saturday version of
Internight.
The start was a bit bumpy due to a series of changes in management and continuing internal squabbles over the direction of the network. Some NBC affiliates were concerned that cross-promotion would divert viewers from their own programs, although that fear abated. However, MSNBC was often first to break news. It broke the story of the crash of
TWA Flight 800 eight minutes before CNN, ushering in an era of hypercompetitiveness between the news channels that continues today.
MSNBC signed a simulcast agreement with
Infinity Broadcasting station
WFAN to carry the
Imus in the Morning radio show, which began on
September 2,
1996. In November 1996, the network moved to new studios in
Secaucus, New Jersey.
MSNBC evolves
The network's goal of attracting a younger, tech-savvy audience failed to materialize. In September 1997, MSNBC laid off 20% of its staff and canceled
The Site due to low ratings and the press of a news story (the death of
Princess Diana), causing howls of protest from its viewers, many of whom considered O'Brien a
cult figure. The network began moving away from its internet roots and began covering fashion and celebrity like its competitors. In October 1997,
Internight was replaced with
The Big Show, hosted by
Keith Olbermann, in hopes that his irreverent style would spike up ratings. After its first year, the network had 24,000 households viewing it per night, well short of the 578,000 of CNN and the 30,000 of Fox News (which was four months younger than MSNBC)
The MSNBC web site remained relatively successful, becoming the most-used online news site in 1997, 1998, and 1999. MSNBC significantly increased during the
impeachment of Bill Clinton, following a new "covering the Big Story" format that provided saturation coverage for the top stories. Keith Olbermann left over MSNBC's continuing focus on the impeachment. He returned in 2003 as host of
Countdown, currently the network's most popular show. When Olbermann left "The Big Show" he was replaced by
John Hockenberry, who achieved some success. Hockenberry's
Edgewise program focused on newsmakers and showed off Hockenberry's documentary skills. Ratings began to drop, however, after the impeachment trial was completed. Fox beat MSNBC in numbers of viewers per 24 hours, particularly impressive considering MSNBC's distribution advantage. NBC News stars began shunning the network. Low-rated chat shows such as
Watch It, and
Equal Time, a
Crossfire knockoff, filled out the schedule. Hockenberry was replaced after six months by a rebroadcast of
Hardball from
CNBC.
That show was replaced by
Headliners and Legends, a biography program that has been a weekend staple on the network ever since. Also in 1999, the management of MSNBC replaced midday news coverage with a delayed broadcast of
NBC News Today called
Today on MSNBC and repackaged
Dateline NBC stories into
MSNBC Investigates, a decision that angered NBC affiliates. On the other hand, 1999 saw a partnership with the
Washington Post that permitted more integrated coverage on the web site.
On April 3, 2000, a show named
Home Page hosted by three women—
Ashleigh Banfield,
Gina Gaston, and
Mika Brzezinski—began. Along with
Home Page, MSNBC tried to attract female viewers by signing a deal in February 2001 with Detroit radio station WJR to simulcast the first two hours of
The Mitch Albom Show. While the pairing was a ratings winner, both shows would eventually be canceled:
Home Page due to sinking ratings; and
The Mitch Albom Show due to its frequent preemptions and some disagreements with the MSNBC management.
In 2000, John Gibson, one of the original MSNBC hosts, left the network. His confrontational tenure as the host of the
Feedback primetime program foreshadowed his opinion program on the Fox News Channel. MSNBC continued to repackage NBC News programs (
Special Edition and
Crime Files), and during the
2000 presidential election cycle, reporters and interviews were cycled constantly between broadcast NBC and the cable news channel. MSNBC also commissioned original documentaries similar to
The Discovery Channel for use as filler on weekends. Later in the year,
Lester Holt received kudos for his daily coverage of the Florida election controversy, allowing MSNBC to beat Fox News during November 2000.
On October 22, 2007 MSNBC and NBC News launched broadcasts from new studios at NBC's "30 Rock" complex in New York City. After extensive renovations of the associated studios, NBC essentially merged its entire news operation into one building, and all MSNBC broadcasts, as well as the
NBC Nightly News program, originate in the new studios. MSNBC is also expected to expand West Coast operations, as the network recently announced new studios near the Universal Studios lot, which will assemble all NBC West Coast news operations in one building. MSNBC's Master Control didn't make the move to 30 Rock. It remained in the old Secaucus headquarters until it completed its move to the NBC Universal Network Origination Center located inside the CNBC Global Headquarters building in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on December 21, 2007.
Ratings
By the start of 2001, MSNBC continued to trail both Fox News and CNN. With the success of Fox News Channel, MSNBC tried to emulate the Fox News Channel's emphasis on opinion hosts. In January 2001,
Mike Barnicle got a show on MSNBC, but it was canceled in June 2001 due to high production costs. In June, in a sign of continuing trouble of MSNBC, Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer said that he wouldn't have started MSNBC if he knew then what he knows now. After the
September 11, 2001 attacks, MSNBC served as an outlet for NBC News to provide up-to-the-minute coverage, in contrast to broadcast NBC's longer stories. CNBC and CNBC Europe, with little financial news to report, ran MSNBC for many hours of the day following the attacks. The year also boosted the profile of
Ashleigh Banfield, who had escaped injury while covering the World Trade Center on
September 11. Her
Region In Conflict program capitalized on her newfound celebrity and showcased exclusive interviews from
Afghanistan.
In 2002, MSNBC's focus continued on opinion journalism and low ratings. MSNBC scored up to triple the usual ratings during the
2002 Winter Olympics, airing several events, but this success wasn't due to news programming.
Alan Keyes is Making Sense debuted in January, featuring the conservative one-time candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination. MSNBC rebranded itself as
America's NewsChannel, with a patriotic theme proclaiming MSNBC to be fiercely independent.
Jerry Nachman joined MSNBC as its editor-in-chief and host of a news analysis program in May, and liberal talk-show pioneer
Phil Donahue began hosting an evening talk show in July.
The News with Brian Williams was moved to
CNBC, leaving MSNBC with primarily opinion shows in the evening. In the afternoon, the cable network replaced rolling news coverage with talk shows featuring
Curtis Sliwa,
Ron Kuby,
Bill Press, and
Pat Buchanan.
The experiment didn't last long. Keyes was gone by July. Sliwa and Kuby were removed in October, and Nachman's show was moved in October. Donahue's ratings plummeted, from 660,000 households in his first week to just 136,000 households in his sixth week, a drop of 80%. The network was regularly beaten in the ratings by
CNN Headline News. Overall, ratings dropped 36% from the previous year. MSNBC publicly proclaimed support for Donahue and moved some shows to try to stabilize his ratings, helping to increase his viewership to 446,000 households. Nevertheless, the cancellation of his show would annoy some left-leaning viewers for years. They saw it as an indication that executives had no faith in liberal viewpoints. Donahue himself claimed that MSNBC was trying to "out-fox" Fox by removing him and adding conservative
Joe Scarborough to the lineup. Donahue's time slot was replaced by
Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
In March 2003, MSNBC featured a weekend show hosted by conservative radio host
Michael Savage. Savage snapped at a prank caller on his show, calling him a "pig" and a "sodomite," telling him that he "should get
AIDS and die," and to "go eat a sausage and choke on it." Savage was immediately fired.
On December 23, 2005, it was announced that NBC Universal would acquire an additional 32% share of the television network from Microsoft, solidifying its control over television operations and allowing NBC to further consolidate MSNBC's backroom operations with NBC News and its other cable properties. MSNBC.com would continue to be 50% owned by both NBC and Microsoft, and its operations would be largely unaffected. NBC would have the option to buy the remaining 18% share from Microsoft after two years. Rumors circulated that the cable network would eventually be rebranded as
NBC News Channel, a name currently used for the network's news service to NBC affiliates.
In June of 2006, Don Kaplan of the
New York Post (owned by
News Corporation, which also owns
Fox News Channel) wrote a column titled "Do We Need MSNBC?" Addressing MSNBC'S low ratings, Kaplan quoted CNN co-founder Reese Schoenfeld, who said that "[e]verybody compares MSNBC to
Fox and
CNN — when its real competition is
Headline News". Schoenfeld pointed out that the ratings for MSNBC and Headline News are roughly the same, about 300,000 viewers on average and that "by comparison, Fox and CNN regularly average three or four times as many viewers." In the column Kaplan remarked that "the running joke in TV news is Fox and CNN are news channels with
websites, but MSNBC is a website with a cable channel".
New leadership
On June 7, 2006, Rick Kaplan resigned as president of MSNBC, after holding the post for two years. Following the announcement, it was announced on June 12, 2006, that
Dan Abrams, a nine-year veteran of MSNBC and NBC News, had been named General Manager of the NBC News 24-hour cable news channel, effective immediately. NBC News Senior Vice President Phil Griffin would oversee MSNBC. Griffin would also continue to oversee NBC News’
Today, and Abrams would report to Griffin.
On June 29, 2006, Abrams announced a revamp to MSNBC's early-primetime and primetime schedule. On July 10,
Tucker (formerly
The Situation with Tucker Carlson) started airing at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET (taking over Abrams' old timeslot), while Rita Cosby's was taken off the schedule. Cosby was instead given the role of primary anchor for
MSNBC Investigates at 10 and 11 p.m. ET, a new program that took over Cosby and Carlson's timeslots. According to the press release,
MSNBC Investigates promised to "...complement MSNBC's existing programming by building on [thenetwork's] library of award winning documentaries." . The move to taped programming during 10 and 11 p.m. was likely a result of the success that the network saw with their Friday "experiment" of replacing all primetime programming with taped specials.
On October 22, 2007 MSNBC moved to its new headquarters in New York City at the newly renovated 3rd and 4th floors of
30 Rock. Studio 3A debuted that morning when MSNBC's
Morning Joe opened its broadcast from the studio at 6 a.m. ET. MSNBC continued to broadcast from Studio 3A throughout the day, including
Live with Dan Abrams in primetime.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann broadcast live at 8 p.m. from the 2nd floor of studio 1A. At 6:30 p.m. ET, Brian Williams unveiled the renovated Studio 3C on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. More than 12.5 hours of live television across NBC News and MSNBC originate from the two studios daily.
On September 24, 2007 Abrams announced that he'd leave the position of General Manager to focus on his 9:00 p.m. ET talk show, "Live With Dan Abrams". Oversight of MSNBC is now provided by Phil Griffin, a senior vice president at
NBC.
Carriage issues
As a result of a carriage agreement, MSNBC is currently not available to
Verizon Fios TV subscribers in Verizon's
Northern New Jersey grouping as well as areas in
New York City. The reason for the lack of availability is an exclusive carriage agreement that MSNBC entered into with Cablevision, which services the areas in question. The terms of the agreement (for example when the exclusive agreement expires) are unknown. If Verizon's subscriptions rise, MSNBC will be increasingly unavailable in one of the largest markets in the United States unless viewers subscribe to a second provider (either
Cablevision or one of the
satellite TV providers).
Broadcasts
MSNBC is shown only in the United States, Canada, parts of Latin America & Africa (see below). In 2001, a Canadian version—
MSNBC Canada—was developed; however, it was soon discontinued in 2004, and the American version began airing in Canada.
MSNBC Africa
In Southern Africa, MSNBC is distributed free-to-air on satellite on Free2View TV as
MSNBC Africa, a joint venture between Great Media Limited and MSNBC. Free2View airs MSNBC's programming from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. ET in a block that repeats twice (live for the first airing), with local weather forecasts from Weather Plus. Botswana's national television broadcaster, BTV, also provides an un-edited broadcast of MSNBC (including advertisements) after their scheduled programming each evening. BTV is available within Botswana, as well as to Southern Africa viewers on
DStv.
Europe and Asia
In Asia and Europe, MSNBC isn't shown on a channel of its own. However, MSNBC is shown for a few hours a day on the 24 hour news network
Orbit News in Europe and the Middle East. During breaking news MSNBC is also shown occasionally on affiliate network
CNBC Europe.
In the UK, during major US breaking news, the now-closed
ITV News Channel (ITN) occasionally showed MSNBC; some of MSNBC's reports appeared in ITV News bulletins.
NTV-MSNBC
In Turkey,
NTV-MSNBC is the news network of the Turkish broadcaster
NTV Turkey. The network is a joint partnership between the two, although very little Turkish content makes its way onto English MSNBC. English content on MSNBC is translated to Turkish.
Online
NBC News family, including network shows such as
Today,
NBC Nightly News, and
Dateline NBC, as well as MSNBC TV. In addition to NBC News content and material produced by the site's own staff, MSNBC.com also hosts articles and features from several partners, including
The Washington Post and
Newsweek magazine.
The web site is developed in
Redmond, Washington, on the Microsoft campus and news content is produced out of newsrooms in Redmond, New York, and London. It is the news provider for MSN, the portal site and online service operated by Microsoft, but it's editorially and financially separate.
Msnbc.com is currently in a fierce battle with CNN.com for the position of top online U.S. news site.
On April 2, 2007, MSNBC.com launched a new logo and a new slogan, "A Fuller Spectrum of News."
Current programming
- First Look, an early morning news program, hosted by MSNBC anchors and featuring weathercasters from NBC Weather Plus
- Morning Joe, a morning news program, hosted by Joe Scarborough with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, featuring regular contributors Erin Burnett, Courtney Hazlett, and Jackie Meretsky
- MSNBC Live, MSNBC's daily hard news programming, focusing on news of the day, hosted by MSNBC anchors and correspondents
- CNBC Market Wrap, a short review of U.S. market moves of the day, replacing regular bottom-of-the-hour newsbreaks during early afternoons, hosted by CNBC anchors
- Hardball, hosted by Chris Matthews, featuring a mix of political and other news, in addition to interviews with politicians and debate
- Race for the White House w/ David Gregory.
- Countdown, a sometimes-irreverent look at the day's top news, at 8 p.m. Hosted by Keith Olbermann, Countdown styled like a radio music countdown, starting with the day's number five story (usually the top story of the day) progressing to number one. According to Hollywood Reporter, it's by far MSNBC's most watched program.
- Verdict with Dan Abrams, formerly Live with Dan Abrams and as The Abrams Report (in the timeslot of Tucker'), a weeknight program focusing on assorted issues, hosted by Dan Abrams.
- MSNBC Doc Block, a two-hour program featuring two documentaries from NBC News.
- Your Business, a program, hosted by JJ Ramberg, featuring news and analysis about small business
- Meet the Press with Tim Russert, a same day re-air of the weekly Sunday-morning interview show carried on the NBC network
- Tim Russert, featuring in-depth interviews with newsmakers, usually using pieces from Meet the Press.
MSNBC/NBC News Anchors and Correspondents
Criticism and controversy
Allegations of political bias
MSNBC has received criticism from various groups and individuals for its programming and
journalistic ethics. Critics have accused the network of allegedly promoting both a liberal and a conservative agenda.
Liberal bias
The
Media Research Center, a
conservative media watchdog group, has criticized the network for having a
left-wing bias in its reporting. MRC points to
Countdown with Keith Olbermann,
Hardball with Chris Matthews, and
Live with Dan Abrams programs most frequently as examples of alleged liberal bias on MSNBC.
Keith Olbermann is especially cited by MRC, as he's well-known for his criticisms of
President Bush and the
Republican Party. He has called on President Bush and
Vice President Cheney to resign. Olbermann has been given a prominent role on the network, such as conducting post-
debate interviews of Republican presidential candidates and leading live coverage of
presidential primaries. In the
February 2008 issue of
Men's Journal magazine, a senior executive at MSNBC stated that Olbermann "runs MSNBC" and that "because of his success, he's in charge" of the network.
In a November
New York Times article, Phil Griffin stated in response to MSNBC's alleged liberal bias that "it happened naturally" and that for the MSNBC staff "there is a Go for it" mentality.
Conservative bias
Media Matters for America, a
liberal media watchdog group, has criticized several MSNBC shows, such as
Tucker and
Morning Joe, for having a conservative bias. For example,
Joe Scarborough of
Morning Joe is a former
Republican congressman.
Tucker 's
Tucker Carlson, who previously co-hosted
CNN's
Crossfire "from the Right," is a well known
conservative-leaning
libertarian pundit; Carlson's show was canceled in March of
2008, but he remained with the network as a correspondent. In 2002, the conservative intellectual firebrand,
Alan Keyes, hosted
Alan Keyes Is Making Sense, which was canceled. Media Matters has repeatedly cited MSNBC's Chris Matthews for his alleged conservative bias and even named him "Misnomer of the Year."
Don Imus controversy
In early April 2007,
shock jock Don Imus, whose radio show
Imus in the Morning was simulcast on MSNBC, made comments about the
Rutgers University women's basketball team. The comments sparked outrage, as many individuals considered the comments to be both racist and sexist. Initially, this resulted in a two-week suspension of Imus' program from MSNBC starting the week of
16 April 2007. However on
April 11,
2007, two days after this announcement, MSNBC announced that it canceled the simulcast, effective immediately as sponsors started withdrawing their advertisements from the show.
CBS Radio, who owns both the radio show's flagship station (
WFAN in
New York) and its syndicator (
Westwood One) initially suspended Imus, later announcing they'd canceled his show, effective late in the day on
April 12,
2007. Imus, as well as NBC News, has apologised to the Rutgers Basketball team for the remarks. MSNBC began filling the 6-9 AM slot first with an extended
MSNBC Live then with a series of rotating talk hosts which includes
Michael Smerconish,
Stephanie Miller,
Tucker Carlson,
Larry Elder,
David Gregory,
Jim Cramer, and
Joe Scarborough. Scarborough's program, dubbed
Morning Joe, had aired consistently since late May, and became the network's permanent replacement for
Imus in the Morning.
Virginia Tech controversy
In
April 2007, NBC News and MSNBC received heavy criticism for airing pictures and videos sent to them by
Cho Seung-Hui, the man who
killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. By the next day, NBC news decided against airing the video and pictures sent by Seung-Hui.
Possible hiring of Rosie O'Donnell
On
November 5,
2007, the
New York Times reported that MSNBC was in discussions with
Rosie O'Donnell to have a prime-time show on the network. Under one scenario, O'Donnell would be given the 9 p.m. slot where she'd compete with
Larry King Live on
CNN and
Hannity & Colmes on the
Fox News Channel. Her show would replace
Live with Dan Abrams. Due to the leaking of the story by O'Donnell, discussions were put on indefinite hold.
MSNBC logos
1996-2001
The network's first logo, it combines
MSN with
NBC.
2001-present
Combining
MSN with
NBC, this logo still in use as a secondary logo.
2001-2002
This logo was utilized in the aftermath of
9/11, in the "
America's News Channel" phase. From this point on, the "N" in the logo was changed from red to match the rest of the letters' colorations. The peacock is colored with a pattern of the
flag of the United States.
2006-Present, MSNBC TV logo
Before the graphics and logo change, the Doc Block began using this version of the logo. Since
August 21,
2006, MSNBC started to use this logo as the network's new official logo.
April 2, 2007-Present, msnbc.com logo
On
April 2,
2007, msnbc.com introduced a logo that deviates from the original font and look previously used since the company's inception.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Msnbc'.
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