As it did two years ago with the summer games, NBC is using MSNBC as an overflow channel for presenting various Olympic events. For the regular shows this body checks, the loss is a total shut out: there was no Up with Steve Kornacki this past weekend.
But for the some of the shows that remain, the effects are still strongly felt. Consider, for example, the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, which normally follows Up. This weekend, her show was off the ice for its first half hour (it started at 10:30 ET instead of the normal 10:00 ET) and when it got into the game it wasn’t passed an audience from its wing man, Steve.
So how did she score on Twitter? Here’s a chart of her previous weekend scores as well as last weekend’s:
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No doubt the team is in the doldrums: this past weekend was the lowest in Twitter mentions since the start of the year, running about 1/4th of the recent average. Even week over week (WoW), Melissa lost about 40% of her mentions, while only losing 25% of her air time. Clearly, hockey is not a great lead-in for her show, and combined with her usual start time being displaced it has decimated her viewership.
On the other hand, consider the performance of Disrupt with Karen Finney. Her show was in its usual time and had its usual lead in. Here are her past few weekends:
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Her mentions closely track those of the MHP Show‘s right up until this last weekend, when the MHP Show was body checked by Olympic Hockey. Interestingly, Karen was able to skate free of Olympic congestion and her week over week mentions were up about 50%.
Given the close tracking of the two shows (relatively), we would expect that Melissa’s show would also have been up 50%. So her mentions aren’t really down 40% because of the Olympics, but more in the range of a 60% hit — and a heck of a lot more than the 25% loss in airtime. No doubt, the Olympics have put Melissa Harris-Perry into the penalty box.
