TJ Walker breaks down the Brian Williams suspension at NBC News: six months unpaid, ratings dropped then rebounded with Lester Holt filling in. Walker questions whether Twitter outrage actually moves the needle with the older TV audience that matters most.
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NBC news still engulfed in crisis. So NBC News has put Brian Williams on a six month unpaid suspension. But NBC still has a crisis on its hands. It somehow has to figure out how to get everyone else in the world to stop talking about the crisis in trust at NBC News. That's not a position any organization wants to be in any business, especially one where the financial stakes are so hot. Now, there has been some good and surprising news for NBC in the last week. The ratings actually went down last Friday night when Brian Williams was still anchoring the news. And for the first time in a long time, they weren't number one. This week ratings have been higher than ever. Back to number one with a substitute anchor of Lester Holt. And when ratings are up, advertising revenue goes up and NPC could be smiling all the way to the bank if this continues, if six months from now ratings are still up, they're still number one, they're making more money than ever and they're saving on a huge salary because they're not having to pay Brian Williams the 10 million a year. Lester Holt is presumably a lot less expensive than that. This could turn out to be a benefit for NBC News. Now there are a few things here that I think haven't really been given enough attention. A lot of play has been given to the beating, the thrashing that Brian Williams and NBC News has faced on Twitter in social media, the erosion of trust. In fact, Brian Williams has gone from the 23rd most trusted American to the Duck Dynasty guy level in the 800s. But here's the thing I haven't seen anyone really adequately address and it's do the actual viewers of NBC News even know what Twitter is? Now, I'm not knocking Twitter. I'm on Twitter every day. I'm a fan of social media, I'm in social media. But let's face it, the average age of somebody who watches NBC Evening News News, that as their news source, it's no different from all the other network broadcasts. And the average age is about 112 and I'm only exaggerating by that much. So the dilemma I face, do I really treat this like it's a real news organization at some level? If you're the anchorman for NBC Evening news at 6:30, you're more or less a promoter, a packager, a repackager, a marketer of a delivery system for news. For people who've never heard of the Internet, that's what it is. And yes, I do follow this stuff closely and I do think trust and scandal are serious. Issues. But at some level it's like if you're the anchor of NBC News and people in Twitter and Facebook are tearing you apart, is that a little bit like being the editor of aarp? You made a nasty comment about teenagers and teenagers are upset about you. But your main readership of people in 60s, 70s, 90s don't even have teenagers living at their house anymore. It doesn't bother you. So there's a little bit of that in play. Let's look at the future. Six months from now, what's going to happen if NBC News is the same, if the ratings are the same, revenues are the same? Well, I'll tell you one thing right now. They're not going to invite Brian Williams back. There'd be no reason to to open up that scab again. Now if ratings are way down, who knows what they're going to do. My suspicion is they would try something completely different. A much younger woman, a Savannah got through something like that. So what are they going to do with Brian Williams if the ratings are high enough? I think they just sort of escort him out the door after doing polling to see how many people care about Brian Williams. Now if it turns out they fear an Ann Curry situation where there's a certain fan base who will be alienated, I'm sure they'll make a home for him somewhere. They could let him host a late, late, late night talk show which apparently has been Brian Williams aspiration all along according to some news reports. Or they could let him do sort of soft entertainment style interviews for the Today show. But if ratings hold and revenues hold, I don't anticipate Brian Williams back in the anchor chair. I'm TJ Walker. Post your comments here.
