Monthly Archives: September 2014

CNNi, I think you won Friday, 9/19/2014

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It may have been NO for Scottish independence, but it was YES for Christiane Amanpour, who brought in the best hour in Cable News Twitter on Friday right at midnight (ET) with her coverage of the Scottish election. Which is pretty amazing, given that the coverage was basically “well, No has won, so let’s kill a few hours until people give their speeches.”

Rachel Nichols had a strong day, winning the day overall. It’s been a long time since a clean sweep for CNN.

MSNBC’s Generation to Generation (#GenToGen) did just OK in its slot, but no better than you’d expect a surprise Friday episode of The Last Word to do. I don’t know, but doesn’t it just seem too serious of a topic for Friday evening?

I have a conceit that MSNBC viewers are, by that hour, out at trendy speakeasies, drinking a lovely South African Stellenbosch or artisanal bourbon, rather than at home watching TV. Maybe if Rachel ended her Fridays not with a cocktail moment but an hour of foodie coverage the ratings would rise?  Or maybe toss in a foodie show at 10pm?

Or just have Chris Hayes Instagram whatever freshly muddled cocktail he’s drinking.  He’d probably get more mentions with “Should I order the ginger mojito or the mint julep (with artisanal bourbon)?”. Hell, I’d even watch a “classic bars and dives with Chris Hayes” show.  He could cover the history of the neighborhood, the struggles of the working class people who lived there in the past, and the drinks that are inspired from the place. It’s not like the Food Network is owned by Comcast so who cares if you stomp on them?

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@WheelsOfTheSyst Twitter Bombs Fox News again … 9/18/2014

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Cable News Trending Topics for 2014-09-18

Once again the @WheelsOfTheSyst folks have managed to retweet bomb Fox News and dominate the trending topics. Clearly, this isn’t organic conversation, and I’m of two minds what to do about it.

The first is just filter out any retweets of @WheelsOfTheSyst.  That would be a bit of a pain, but manageable.  The second is to try to filter out tweets from suspicious accounts in general (for example, a huge number of the retweets are from “egg” accounts).  The first solves the problem for the moment, but will let the next version of @WheelsOfTheSyst through.  The second will trim off some bona fide users who haven’t changed their avatar yet.

I’ve pinged the @WheelsOfTheSyst folks to get a better sense of what’s happening — maybe it’s a tempest in a tea cup and I should let it slide.  We’ll see…

Another interesting question is whether the constant retweets is drowning out the other, organic conversations about Fox News.  I don’t really know.

Beyond them, the normal ISIS conversation is taking place.  Interesting to see, on the other hand, that Scotland didn’t creep into the leaderboard.  Perhaps for Friday.

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CNNi wins Cable News Twitter on Thursday, September 18, 2014

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I was watching the events unfold in Scotland last night, and apparently so were a lot of other people: CNNi managed to win the best day in Cable News Twitter with its Scottish election coverage, even though the denouement did not occur until after midnight.   Who knew there were so many scot-o-philes out there? Or maybe Christiane Amanpour fans — I was happy to see her anchoring last night.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that when big stuff happens, CNN is the go to station for people.

In other news … The Kelly File had the best hour, which is pretty typical these days.

Note that the ratings below are the regularly scheduled shows and does not reflect any preëmptions for Scottish coverage. (I just read The New Yorker, can you tell?)

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