Anderson Cooper wins the best hour on Wednesday (1647 mentions), just nosing out The Ed Show (1614) and All-In with Chris Hayes (1611).  One thing that’s interesting is that Anderson’s Twitter demographics skew female (56%), but not as skewed as time-slot competitor Hayes’ demos are in the other direction (61% male).

I’ve pointed this out before, but it bears repeating: Part of MSNBC’s challenges, as seen through the lens of Twitter, is that its gender mix is uneven throughout primetime.  The Ed Show starts with a perfect balance (50-50),  and then MSNBC starts to slide more and more male, starting at 55% for Al Sharpton, moving on to 59% for Hardball, and then ending up 61% for Chris Hayes. Then, abruptly, it snaps back to 50-50 for Rachel Maddow and even swings a bit female for Lawrence O’Donnell (53%).

It’s true that other networks have more extremely polarized demographics, but some of those other networks are nonetheless far ahead of MSNBC in the Nielsen ratings. Whatever is driving MSNBC’s audience to swing from balanced to male and back again is driving away female viewers from the heart of primetime. By the time we get to Chris Hayes, enough female viewers have turned off MSNBC that his ratings take a hit; his audience does not dovetail with Rachel Maddow’s, and so not enough of them tune in early to catch Chris as well.  Fix that, and his ratings should jump.

Happy two weeks until Christmas, everyone.  Remember, the real panic doesn’t start for a week, so finish shopping now and avoid the last minute madness!

Continue reading →