Ratings for Current’s new incarnation of Countdown With Keith Olbermann were bound to fall in the show’s second week as the curiosity factor wore off and people began their July 4 vacations. Still, the numbers from last week are bracing: Olbermann attracted an average of 93,000 viewers in its target 25-54 demo, down 29% from the first week. The total audience, at 253,000, was down 28.5%. The numbers account for people who watched the 8 PM ET broadcast live, or the same evening on their DVRs.
Current has little reason to be alarmed just yet. It’s attracting far more than the average of 15,000 viewers who tuned in to the time slot during the four weeks before Olbermann moved in. Last Wednesday’s broadcast handily beat Eliot Spitzer on CNN’s In The Arena. And Olbermann’s June 20 premiere broadcast did better than even Current initially thought: The network reported that the show attracted 179,000 viewers in its demo, but that just included live viewers. When same-day DVR watchers are thrown in, Olbermann drew 245,000 in the 25-54 demo, beating MSNBC with 237,000 and CNN with 89,000. Olbermann has said that he won’t focus on week-to-week ratings while Countdown finds its rhythm, and audience.


One way for “Countdown” to find it’s audience would be to release full nightly episodes to iTunes the day after. They could even release full video versions with the ads left in and/or release a “Countdown” app that allows streaming of the most recent episodes with advertisements.
I’d go for a COUNTDOWN app!
LOL. You’d go for a lobotomy app, too, I bet.
MSNBC used to podcast Countdown. I was hoping Current would do the same, but so far they’ve been picking and choosing small chunks of episodes.
Why would they podcast something that draws less than 100,000 viewers? It’s a major money loser.
Can’t wait “while Countdown finds its rhythm…is it ‘to the falling rain”?
Hee, Hee, Hee,……………good one!!
To further my point, I used to listen to audio podcasts of “Countdown” on the way to work. Since I don’t have Current in my cable plan and I have no interest in downloading and watching the three minute segments from Keith’s show that are currently being posted on iTunes, I have no way of getting the show.
Eric, what you should do is contact your cable provider and say “I want Current!” That’s how many cable nets have been added to systems. Consumer reaction, believe it or not, is important to cable operators…particularly since their major competitors–Verizon FIOS and the satellite companies (Direct TV, etc.) –all carry Current for their customers!
Current is available, it’s just on another tier that I’m not going to pay for. It’s ridiculous that it’s not a basic cable channel.
Then you would be paying more for basic cable.
You can always google “Current TV live streams online” and watch it for free on your phone or lap top.
…..just GOOGLE IT!
I will not post the sites here but you just need to google using words like: free online live news stream, how do I watch current tv online for free?
…..then you will get many sites broadcasting live online.
CURRENT clearly needs to add an intern whose job is to strip the show’s video and send to iTunes.
COUNTDOWN was one of the top downloads.
That would run contrary to CURRENT’s desire to have people call their cable companies because they want the network added to their cable systems.
November sweeps will tell the tale for KO.
He’d sure as hell be focusing on the ratings if they were any good. If Countdown were beating Fox in some demo, Keith would be focusing on those ratings big time. We’d never hear the end of it.
Perhaps people just don’t like his special brand of hatefulness enough to seek it out on some niche cable channel.
Actually, those that do like his brand of hatefulness can just tune in to The Ed Show on MSNBC, as that guy is like a fat clone of KO. I’m a pretty open minded socially liberal guy, and that dude just makes me cringe because he’s so damn mean. It’s a classic case of the messenger ruining the message.
“Actually, those that do like his brand of hatefulness…” This from a person who calls Ed “a fat clone of KO”. “Fat”? Really? Hateful much? I’ll bet you call Rachel Maddow a “man” too, huh?
This is why we “lefties” laugh our asses off at you and your ilk. The hypocrisy is palpable. But go right ahead – do what Drudge tells you to do. He’s your only master since Beck is done and gone. You have no sense of right and wrong unless it’s being shoved down your welcoming throat(s).
When did Drudge start telling people what to do? Last I checked he just posts links.
Whoa, Nellie! I’m another liberal guy, even pretty far to the left (been accused of being to the left of Attila the Hun), and I can’t stand either of them. It’s enough to hear the tenor of their so-called “arguments” to know I want nothing to do with them–their nastiness and anti-illectualism is so off-putting, I never know what it is exactly they’re arguing. If we can’t prevail on the facts, without tinging them, 24/7, with hateful, emotional cris de couers, then perhaps the conservative folks are right about us. If the MSNBC and Currents crowd would focus a little more on the facts, and a lot less on the vitriol, we might be able to convince at least the Independents that the Dem party is not primarily warmed-over McGovernites, J.Jacksonites, and Sharptonite. If we don’t succeed in that, Obama’s gonna be kryptonite, come Nov. 2012.
LEFT of Atilla??? Atilla the Hun was a tad to the right numbn*ts..
“You have no sense of right and wrong unless it’s being shoved down your welcoming throat(s).”
But of course that’s not a hateful (or hypocritical) comment at all.
Cash nailed it on the head. Sad that you have to resort to personal attacks, but that’s what all liberals do without any facts to back up their arguments.
The irony of attacking somebody for being hateful, by being hateful youself is delicious.
Why don’t you just Godwin him now and be done with it?
Ace
Oh ace, you are so funny. There are way more of us than there of you. The liberal is a dying breed.And we laugh at you just as hard. Now you know current TV will soon be going the way of Air America.The folks are tired of your pitiful way of thinking.Bye bye now parrot.
Let’s see…
bad punctuation – check;
bad sentence structure – check;
bad syntax – check;
missing words (no proofreading) – check;
grammar’s iffy…
You’re right! There are more of you “out there” than us! You fit the description of “uneducated conservative” perfectly. I’m sure you’re so proud of that fact.
You think I’m being “hateful”? Jeez, listen to (or ‘read’, rather) yourselves! Making fun of someone’s name, making fun of someone’s size or sexual preference is not only hateful, it’s positively sophomoric!
I love reading these posts every time Olbermann is mentioned because the topic brings all the crazies out – people who claim how much of a non-entity Keith Olbermann is, yet can’t stop bemoaning his mere presence on TV. If he’s such a non-entity, then why do you all have your panties in such a wad? The mere fact that you feel such a need to come here and comment (in droves) shows how much of an impact he’s made.
I happen to like what Olbermann stands for, even though he goes too far on occasion. I wish him well at Current because I feel he has an honest voice that should be heard.
And yes, Drudge implicitly (and regularly) sends his followers to Deadline to comment on varied “liberal” topics. And yes, the comments are pretty hilarious.
My comment, “You have no sense of right and wrong unless it’s being shoved down your welcoming throat(s)” is apt, not hateful. FOX, though it has the most viewers by far, is known widely as a political arm of the Republican party, and that FOX viewers watch merely to be told what they want to hear (true or not), and to check out the legs and peek up the skirts of the hot female “journalists”. And btw, Ailes doesn’t argue this. Take away the sideshows of Beck and Palin, take away the sexy short-skirt wearing female “anchor/journalists”, and take away the ridiculous false claims against Obama and the current administration – and all you’d have is Sean Hannity talking to himself in a vacuum. All day. (Oh, and Mike Doocy. Sorry pal, didn’t mean to impugn your journalistic integrity or anything like that by forgetting you exist.)
You think people have such love for olbermann they will sit and watch him do day old news?
It’s sad when under 300,000 people and beating Spitzer’s crap show is enough to be more successful than the test pattern that previously aired on the channel…
Pretty much what I was thinking as I looked at those numbers …… “Fox News’ test pattern gets better numbers than this.”
I watch Kieth on the internet, and the site I use have over 900,000 people watching Countdown.
On the back up channel online, about 240,000 watch his broad cast.
The Nielson rating system is antiquated, and do not count these viewers.
Keep dreaming. More people watch Eric Estrada selling parcels of alabama swampland at 2 in the morning.
More and more people are seeing him for the pompous blowhard that he is.
More people watch a late night infomercial for P90X than Olberman. And they learn more from it.
If Olbermann blows this gig his next stop is cable access.
isn’t that what current is?
“Keithey’s World” in his basement with a stoned Wolf Blitzer next to him on the couch?
Those numbers for CNN’s drivel programming in Spitzer and Morgan have to be very concerning for their brass and to get beat out by this fool on a no-name network has to be the straw breaking the camel’s back. The numbers for the CNN shows are very disturbing and should warrant cancellation.
I don’t care for Keith or MSNBC, so the fact that he’s beating them is kind of funny for me. In fact I wish Current would move his time slot to play directly against Rachel Maddow.
The real story should be that a “high-end” novelty channel with a fairly limited scope actually beat CNN in their Wednesday slot.
(While it’s probably just a temporary fad before it settles, CNN should, nonetheless, start upping their game if they want to stay relevant.)
CNN primtime gets beat by a 3am show on FNC. The news would be if a show didn’t beat CNN.
Just make it easy, Current. Come one, you’ve got gold on your hands. Don’t squander it. It’s a go. So, let’s go!
Gold? I just made deposit of “gold” in my toilet bowl. And, yes, I washed my hands.
If KO was half as smart or half as funny as he seems to believe he is, he’d have ratings.
Great comment. if ko did in fact have any credibility or knowledge, beyond his animal husbandry degree from Cornell Ag School, he would indeed attract more viewers then the meager amount he entertains.
The Wizard of Oz comes to mind, ‘If he only had a brain…”
His terrible ratings will soon be attributed to a convenient boogeyman, “The vast right-wing conspiracy”, that usually seems to get the blame whenever the Liberal crazy train goes off the track(as it often does).
I actually like to have ol’ Keith on sometimes at night, his frantic & strident rants make my cats wake up and stare at the TV like they’ve seen a big gray mouse they want to play with until it’s a bag of bloody mush.
He does have some value after all.
Who is Keith Olbermann and what is Current?
Bwahahahahah, Keith Olberdouche fails miserably. Who’da thunk it?
It’s over Johnny, it’s OVER!
O’Reilly Factor 30 June 2011: 2,540,000 viewers.
how about just plan shut his pie-hole and go away?
I didn’t realize people actually WANT to watch this hate-monger.
Current TV will implode just like Air America.
Good times….
KO’s audience can’t afford cable and what ratings he does have reflect those who still live with their parents.
Why would anyone go through the motions to watch him on “Current TV”?
You can hear the same meme all night long on MSNBC from Matthews to Schultz to Maddow.
All his show contains is: Republicans & Conservatives are evil, mean, vile sub-human terrorists, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.