I admit that I don’t tune in to Chris Matthews at 7pm very often, but I thought I’d see what he was saying about Sanford since that’s the ‘big news’ of the day. Little did I know that I would not learn much about anything else.
I’m used to FNC – or Shep Smith at 7pm. He always covers a variety of topics, as he did today. Below is a comparison of the topics that both Shep and Matthews covered today (I didn’t catch the first few minutes of Shep, so my apologies if I’ve missed something (like Iran)):
| Shep Smith – 7pm | Chris Matthews – 7pm |
| – N Korea | – Gov Sanford |
| – Ambassador to Syria | |
| – Baghdad Explosion | |
| – Train Wreck | |
| – Gov Sanford | |
| – CitiGroup |
You read that right. From 7pm to 8pm Chris Matthews only talked about Sanford. That’s it. There was a small segment on republican candidates as it relates to 2012, as it relates to Sanford. I’m not saying the content was fair or unfair, but to spend a whole hour on one topic? I guess there’s no other news going on in the MSNBC world. It doesn’t surprise me that his ratings are horrible. I checked my records for this month, and he has only broken 20% of the 7pm viewership once in total viewers. Shep on the other hand hits 50% or better on a regular basis. I’m not even a huge fan of Shep, but I’d rather get the news at 7pm than to listen to Chris Matthews run a topic into the ground.