With the start of the new year, I thought I’d take a look at how MSNBC’s year on Twitter has been. Not all of MSNBC, but the primetime (and weekend) shows that have been on the air for the bulk of the year: Hardball, The Ed show, Politics Nation, The Rachel Maddow Show, Last Word, All In, Up with (Chris/Steve), and the Melissa Harris-Perry Show.
Let’s start with the big chart — the mentions each show received, broken down by month:
Click to enlarge – it’s worth it
At a glance you can see some big trends — September saw a spike in conversation and then a drift back towards normal levels.
But inside the data are some interesting tidbits. Let’s start with The Ed Show, which was abruptly taken off the air, then put into a weekend purgatory slot before returning to prime time:
It’s a big chart for Big Ed, so click to see it all.
You can see clearly that April was a lost month for Ed, and then the next three months depressed his mentions while he was stuck in the weekend slot. But upon his return to prime-time, Ed picked up where he left off in terms of Twitter mentions — that’s pretty amazing given how his show was handled.
Of course, when Ed got moved out of the 8pm weekday slot, Chris Hayes moved in, recasting his Up with Chris Hayes show into All-In with Chris Hayes. “Up” was re-hosted with Steve Kornacki and continued without interruption.
But the fans of the show seemed to have moved over with Chris to week days, as the mentions chart show:
Click to enlarge. It’s like the large type edition.
The best of Steve is struggling to catch up to the worst of Chris, while Chris’s mentions look like they’ve continued unaffected by the move.
One last observation: there’s nothing like a whiff of scandal to drive the discussion on Twitter. And at the end of the year, Melissa Harris-Perry’s show held a discussion of the Romney family Christmas card that prompted Ms. Harris-Perry to issue an apology. That produced a huge year-in spike in Twitter mentions for the show:
You probably get the gist of it right here, but go ahead and click to see a bigger version if you like.
That was about a tripling her normal peak mentions, and the buzz blazed right through the end of the year. It will be interesting to see if it all dies down before everybody returns from their holiday haze…
Happy new year to MSNBC, its fans, and its viewers. I wish you all health, wealth, and prosperity. I’ll resume my daily ratings as the networks return to their normal schedules, and I hope you’ll check in from time to time to see how everyone is doing.
