Beautiful Monday
by digby
Here’s a little piece of news to start your week off with a bang. The good kind. (Well, not that good…)
TVNewser reports
“Young viewers just don’t watch The O’Reilly Factor like they used to. April marked Bill O’Reilly’s lowest-rated month in the 25-54 demographic since August 2001.*
His 415,000 demo viewers in March was a new low, but O’Reilly managed to lose a few more in April, averaging 412,000 in the demo. Here’s his post-Katrina track:
Sept: 1,115 / Oct: 518 / Nov: 468 / Dec: 460 / Jan: 472 / Feb: 458 / Mar: 415
But this trend started long before the hurricane. for O’Reilly, April’s numbers reflected his lowest demo rating in almost five years.
Among total viewers, O’Reilly delivered a respectable 2,102,000 million viewers for the month. But that, too, was low — the lowest, in fact, since July of 2004 (when he had 2,042,000). Click here to feast your eyes on O’Reilly’s monthly averages since 2001…”
* Notable that O’Reilly, like his president “Trifecta”, benefitted from the attacks of September 11th.
And in case you’re wondering, Keith Olbermann’s 25-54 numbers were up to 242,000 for April, continuing to climb. I’m just saying.
I’ve actually been tuning in once in a while because I don’t want to miss the inevitable full-on Howard Beale meltdown. They must be making book in Vegas.
Ever since Stephen Colbert opened his mouth at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner and pointedly mocked Bush in front of Bush, online buzz on the fake newsman has reached scalding temperatures. The response started with a kind of did-he-really-do-that shock. Then it escalated into furious takes on whether Colbert was funny or not, why the mainstream media blew it off, and how the great blogosphere struck back—or just seized another opportunity to parade its own virtues.
There’s a boulder-coming-at-Indiana Jones quality to the story now. Searches on the eyebrow-raising comedian are up 5,625% this week and picking up speed. Trajectories for “Colbert speech” and “colbert video” are racing off the chart. And “The Colbert Report,” its fan site Colbert Nation, and the newly created ThankYouStephenColbert.org also launched upward in Buzz.
In one corner of the Search ring, we saw gratitude toward the Comedy Central smarty-pants. What’s in the opposite corner, looking to cuff him? We noted searches for “colbert roasts bush,” “colbert bush,” and “bush dinner.” But no DamnYouStephenColbert.org or “bush looks ready to throttle colbert” (although he did).
Two of the characters wielded by Colbert that night also jumped in Buzz. Veteran reporter and Bush haranguer Helen Thomas, who costarred in the performance-closing video, leapt in searches. And outed CIA agent Valerie Plame spiked 262%. So, will the White House get revenge against the fake pundit and his phony news show? Let’s just hope his wife is no undercover spook.
The word on the street is that Colbert is a MySpace phenomenon too, which may be part of what’s driving this. Whether or not you think it was funny — it has become a certified internet event. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
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