COMMENTARY
Donahue-less MSNBC takes a sharp right
By Brian Lambert
Knight Ridder News Service
The only thing less surprising than MSNBC finally whacking Phil Donahue, as it did Tuesday, is MSNBC's deciding it has to take a hard right turn in order to survive in cable "news."
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Hardly a sexy, fresh face, the 67-year-old talk-show veteran was positioned to out-shout and out-'tude the human blast furnaces on Fox News. It didn't work fast enough for MSNBC, and his failure will no doubt reinvigorate the opinion that American audiences will never warm to anything other than unabashed conservative partisans — or, in the case of MSNBC's other recent hire, talk-radio host Michael Savage, outright bigots.
Phil Donahue insists that he wasn't given enough time to build an audience. His show premiered in July, and he was fired last week.
With Donahue played out, MSNBC's strategy is shifting to new prime-time programs with former ABC personality Sam Donaldson and what's-his-name, the former governor of Minnesota. Those shows are expected to debut after the expected war in Iraq.
Also added to MSNBC's roster in recent days is former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the Texas Republican memorable for a couple of "jokes" about a fellow congressman, the openly gay Barney Frank. (We all remember "Barney Fag." But Armey has made enough of a habit of unflattering gay punch lines that you have to wonder what private demons he's hiding.)
Armey will be a regular commentator for MSNBC, as will Florida Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, an occasional guest host for MSNBC's "Nachman." Suffice it to say that neither politician presents any risk of arguing positions unsympathetic to the present White House occupant or GOP congressional majority.
Donahue issued a statement critical of GE/NBC executives Wednesday, saying, "We were hoping to break through the noisy drums of war on cable and become a responsible platform for dissenters as well as administration supporters." He insisted the six months the corporation gave his show was insufficient to build an audience.
"The hiring of Mike Savage, Dick Armey and Joe Scarborough," Donahue added, "suggests a strategy to out-Fox Fox."
On Wednesday, MSNBC was putting out several fires in addition to the Donahue statement. One was ignited by the leak of what was purported to be a study NBC News executives commissioned to guide their decisions on the fate of MSNBC.
The report appeared in the TV-industry watcher Web site allyourtv.com. In it, Donahue was described as "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace."
"Tired"? I don't know. The guy has at least as much juice as Sean Hannity. "Left-wing liberal"? Guilty as charged. But it's the desperate desire to pander to the "current marketplace" factor that damns NBC News, if the report is true.
It goes on to say that Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." How? Well, "he seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." In other words, ratings and profit are snuffing free speech in an open society.
The competitive nightmare, the report said, is that MSNBC then becomes "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Asked for comment, MSNBC did not deny the validity of the report. In a written response, it said, "We don't comment on unfounded statements published on the Web."
