Did MSNBC’s President Phil Griffin Not Know What He Had Till Ed Schultz Was Gone?

A lot of attention has been paid to MSNBC’s apocalyptic post-election ratings dive, as media critics wonder aloud just what has gone wrong over at 30 Rock. Here at Mediaite, my colleague Noah Rothman wrote a provocative piece dissecting a major part of the network’s woes, the ratings challenged new prime time anchor Chris Hayes. Since taking over the coveted 8 pm slot in April, All In with Chris Hayes has driven a large portion of the audience out, with anemic ratings in April resulting in an 18% drop in total viewers compared to the same time the year before. May was even less kind to Hayes and MSNBC, resulting in the dubious distinction of the worst 8 pm ratings since 2006.

Whether or not a rocky two months is a long enough time to fairly assess Hayes, there is one personality who we’ve had a much longer period of time to judge, an MSNBC personality that might be keeping network President Phil Griffin up at night, sweating like a young romantic regretting a breakup while wondering if there just might be something to that whole not knowing what you got till it’s gone thing.

Ed Schultz.

Disregarding whether you love or hate “Big Eddie,” from a network ratings point of view, Schultz was delivering the goods while occupying the anchor chair for only a year and a half. For the third quarter of 2012, he fell slightly short of a million total viewers per night, and had even occasionally beat network superstar Rachel Maddow and the rest of his MSNBC colleagues in primetime.

Maybe more important than ratings, Schultz became a stabilizing figure for the vital 8 pm slot in the wake of network nightmare Keith Olbermann‘s sudden departure and the failed attempt to morph Lawrence O’Donnell into a bombastic bomb thrower. Sure, those fun Spike Lee “Lean Forward” commercials have helped MSNBC market its talent (and occasionally stir up controversy), but after a decade-long network identity crisis, Schultz’s fiery barn-burning style helped MSNBC find its brand as the cable voice for the progressive movement, more specifically as the champions for a middle class under attack. Just as important as his own show, Schultz was serving as a strong lead-in to the aforementioned Maddow, as she continued topping the ratings chart for MSNBC while also occasionally beating Fox News and CNN in the all important 25-54 demo.

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Full article here: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/did-msnbcs-president-phil-griffin-not-know-what-he-had-till-ed-schultz-was-gone/