MSNBC gains on Fox, CNN

NEW YORK (AP) — Phil Griffin, the NBC News executive who oversees MSNBC, is a coiled mass of energy who needs little provocation to do battle. Now he’s got something to fight for.

MSNBC is a player in the cable news competition in a way it hasn’t been before. The surge in viewership created by the presidential campaign has benefited MSNBC more than Fox News Channel or CNN, and Mr. Griffin is pushing to consolidate those gains.

Round-the-clock political talk is planned for the Democratic and Republican national conventions later this summer. Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann will be the prime-time ringmasters working on outdoor sets in St. Paul and Denver, as opposed to booths in the convention halls. Joe Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” will likely originate from a diner.

Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell - the kind of NBC News star power that once kept MSNBC at arm’s length - will all play prominent roles.

MSNBC is competing hard in the sloganeering game, too. While CNN claims “the best political team on television” and Fox is “America’s election headquarters,” MSNBC is the “place for politics.”

MSNBC specifically targets new viewers to cable news, in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic most attractive to advertisers. Fox and CNN have wider leads when all viewers are counted, but MSNBC is competitive among the younger viewers.

During the first three weeks of June, MSNBC’s prime-time weeknight audience was up 85 percent over last year within that group, according to Nielsen Media Research. CNN was up 29 percent and Fox was down 1 percent during the same period. MSNBC was within striking distance, fewer than 10,000 viewers on average, of second-place CNN.

Advertisers have taken notice of MSNBC’s gains, says Andy Donchin, an analyst for the media buying firm Carat USA.

“They’re not at CNN and Fox’s level yet,” Mr. Donchin says. “But I think they’ve made greater inroads. They’ve gotten their act together a bit and found a formula that works for them.”

For the first time, MSNBC has everyone at NBC News behind the network and believing in it, Mr. Griffin says. That’s partly explained by the simple move of MSNBC’s studios from Secaucus, N.J., to NBC’s headquarters at Rockefeller Center in New York.

The late Tim Russert played a key role in signaling an acceptance of MSNBC by starting to make more appearances there a year or two ago, Mr. Griffin notes. That wasn’t necessarily a priority at NBC News during the years when MSNBC seemed without a direction.

“There was a sensibility here that 30 Rock was the major leagues,” he says. “Cable is fine but it was sort of kids playing in Secaucus. I think everyone knows that MSNBC is a player and a platform for NBC News editorially and financially.”

Management erred in years past by trying to be all things to all people, Mr. Griffin says. Now MSNBC is “a little smarter, a little edgier, a little more honest.”

And maybe a little more liberal. Mr. Griffin resists the idea that MSNBC is positioning itself as the go-to network for the left, in much the same way as Fox is the network of choice for many conservatives. Still, its breakout show is hosted by the virulently anti-administration Mr. Olbermann, who’s made no secret of his admiration for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

CNN plays to that image with an advertising campaign that portrays itself as the “independent thinker.”

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