Joe Scarborough knew nothing about Rolling Stone magazine's profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal until he was on the air Tuesday, asked to read a "tease" promoting the story as "Morning Joe" headed into its first commercial break after its 6 a.m. start.
That changed, very quickly. Off the air, he grabbed an Associated Press account of what McChrystal had said, asked if NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski could be found to speak on it. He essentially made the magazine story and its implications the show's chief topic moving forward.
Barely more than a day later, President Barack Obama fired the Afghanistan war's top commander.
A phone call at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday startled Rolling Stone editor Eric Bates, telling him that a car would be by in 20 minutes to take him to the MSNBC studios. Bates had been booked for the show on Wednesday, to talk about a BP story and a "foreign policy story" that Rolling Stone had upcoming that he didn't identify beforehand. It was the McChrystal story, and it was breaking fast: The general and his aides had been quoted disparaging Obama and his national security aides.
During the hour he appeared, the "Morning Joe" audience of nearly 600,000 viewers far outpaced the season average of 377,000, the Nielsen Co. said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hiNx_MH71YDMoMJIffMvVG43gJ8gThe AP's David Bauder writes today about the alleged "growing influence" of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," using last week's McChrystal coverage as anecdotal evidence of the show's success in Washington/media influence though not necessarily in viewer ratings:
While it's simplistic to think MSNBC's morning show influenced
, it's no stretch that "Morning Joe" helped put McChrystal's words at the top of the national agenda. "Morning Joe" may not have a lot of viewers, but the show tends to be on in important places. Mike Allen, chief White House correspondent of Politico and a regular on the show, said that a senior Obama administration official told him, "I saw the funnel cloud forming on 'Morning Joe.'"
On the ratings front:
From Mon-Thurs of last week -- we won't have Friday's numbers until later this afternoon -- "Morning Joe" averaged 464,000 total viewers, which was the second-most in cable news, but still a far cry from FNC's "Fox & Friends," which averaged 964,000. In the demo, "Morning Joe" drew 130,000, the smallest A25-54 audience in cable news.
For the month of May, the program averaged 406,000 total viewers and 119,000 in the demo, with the same rank in both categories.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/morning_joes_growing_influence_166048.asp
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