With the debut of a new host and a presidential appearance in the runup to Obama’s pre-emptive war in Iraq, it would have been impossible for Meet the Press to achieve anything other than first place two weeks ago, which it did. Chuck Todd’s second week saw a return to third place behind CBS’ Face the Nation and ABC’s This Week. The silver lining, though, is that the Meet the Press ratings still improved:
“Meet the Press With Chuck Todd” has come back down to Earth in the new host’s second week, though the sophomore effort still slightly topped the news program’s quarter-to-date average.
On Sunday, NBC’s public affairs show pulled in 2.589 million total viewers, with 668,000 coming from the key 25-54 demographic. That first number represents a seven percent increase from comparable episodes in 2014’s Q3. …
Still, in the first two weeks of Todd’s tenure, “MTP” is posting the largest total viewer growth versus the month of August among the public affairs shows, up 15 percent, NBC touted.
Rebuilding a franchise like this can take years. It took more than five years for the legendary Tim Russert to arrive in first place. David Gregory lost his job because he took things in the wrong direction. As long as Todd improves the ratings and makes news without embarrassing himself (as Gregory did more than once), Todd will be there for as long as he chooses.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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