Cable News Ratings.

So, I just finished watching today's Hardball Clip with Lawrence O'Donnell. O'Donnell was substituting for Chris Matthews. I love it when this happens b/c O'donnell is a hard hitting son of a gun. He takes no quarter and he is one of the best cable news debaters on the scene. There is one other that is about as good as him, but I can't remember his name right now. Anyway, O'Donnell was interviewing a Republican Representative and, quite frankly, nailing him to the wall. The Republican kept trying to evade the question, but O'Donnell wouldn't let him do it and kept asking for a yes or no answer to his very cutting questions. The Republican was getting very frustrated and kept saying "This is why noone watches MSNBC. You won't even let your guests answer questions."

As though Fox News does. I remember during President Obama's New Hampshire town hall meeting last week that Fox News, in fact, cut to something else right in the middle of the town hall. None of the other stations did. And if you've ever seen a Fox News pundit interview a Democrat, well, you know just how "fair and balanced" that is. Pathetic, really.

But the O'Donnell interview got me thinking about cable news ratings. So I googled cable news ratings and found that Fox News has ratings through the roof while MSNBC has about half the ratings, if that, that Fox News does. How is this? What am I not understanding? Do right-wing crazies just have more time for television watching? Are the shows on Fox News just more entertaining than the ones on MSNBC? I wish I could understand this trend, but I really, really don't. Anyway, I do wonder what the ratings for Current TV are in comparison with these other stations. I've been watching Current a lot lately, b/c it has very good reporting and his very entertaining. On Dish Network it's channel 358. I heard that Al Gore owns that channel or is CEO of it or something like that. I heard it the other day when Big Dog Bill rescued Laura Ling and Euna Lee from North Korea. All the news stations that covered the event were talking about Gore's affilliation with Current TV. Right now, they're showing footage of Burning Man: What station does that!? Awesome.

There's not much else I can add to this rant, aside from admonishing MSNBC for running those stupid prison shows all the time that show what it's like inside prisons. Do those get good ratings? Who would want to watch that? Meanwhile, Fox is running Glenn Beck. Sure wish I could watch the Ed Show or Hardball with Lawrence O'Donnell right now.

I would embed the video but I can't figure it out right now. Every time I copy and paste the embedded link it shows up on the blog as something other than the actual embedded link. See?