I didn’t have to run the stats to know what the dominant topic for Thursday was going to be: Obama’s announcement of increased involvement in Iraq trying to stop ISIS. Obama himself was the dominant topic, with Iraq tied into the conversation.
On Thursday, Hannity swept both the best hour and best day category on Twitter. The Ed Show was second for best hour, but not a very close second.
Mediaite has a story on their web site entitled “Wednesday Cable Ratings: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Last in Primetime Demo“. It demonstrates, unfortunately, the limits of trying to cover multiple cable networks 24/7. The problem with the article is fairly obvious: Chris Hayes was not on the air on Wednesday. I might have passed by this without comment, but Mediaite so revels in pointing out when MSNBC shows are last in the ratings. Guys, if you’re going to be unrelentingly critical, you should work just a bit harder to not make it obvious you have it in for someone.
I offer this, then, as an amuse yeux:
(Chart generated at compete.com)
President Obama managed to be the most talked about topic in Cable News Twitter on Wednesday. Amusingly, the hashtag #blackfish, which is left over from CNN’s special about killer whales, managed to edge out #ebola in popular hashtags…
Live from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, The Ed Show had the best hour on Cable News Twitter Wednesday. Hannity had the best day overall.
Random notes from across the web:
The Rachel Maddow Show’s EP Bill Wolff is heading to ABC to run The View. It will be interesting to see who will replace him and what changes that might bring.
Morning Joe came in 4th place yesterday (per Mediaite). Nonetheless, Morning Joe had nearly half of all Twitter mentions in the 6-9 block, with CNN getting 30%, Fox 18%, and HLN 4%. This shows the disconnect between Twitter engagement and ratings, especially when you have a variety of different audiences. Clearly, using social media purely as a way to boost viewership is limited in its impact. But if networks can find a way to monetize that social media engagement, it could become a viable (and unshared with cable networks) stream of revenue. I don’t know that anyone has been able to figure out how to monetize social media, but I think a clever tweet at the start of a show thanking a major sponsor, with a link, wouldn’t be a bad way to start to see what the click-thru rates are…
Tuesday’s top topics were Israel with a sprinkling of ebola…