Koolaid Alert: Keith jumps, Falafel King slumps!

From Cliff Schecter blog:

We were waiting to see if the post-NBC network airings of our Keith's MSNBC Countdown show would get a boost, or whether the NBC spike was just a fluke.

As I predicted in a previous post, it was no fluke.

For the week ending August 31, Countdown averaged 278,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demo. That’s a 17% increase over the program average for the 2nd quarter of 2007. It is fair to conclude that this spike was due almost entirely to the promotional value of the NBC broadcast. None of the other programs on MSNBC’s schedule enjoyed a comparable bounce. Olbermann’s numbers exceeded his 2nd quarter average (230K) as well as his prior week average (242K).

At the same time, The O’Reilly Factor suffered a rather severe slump.

He was off his 2nd quarter average by--drum roll--51%! I'm expecting several more "shut ups" from his falafel-filled mouth.

Can this be rationalized away? Nope. Nopenopenope.

But the piece de resistance came Thursday when Countdown actually fractured the Factor, topping it by a whopping 94,000 demo viewers. That’s not merely a win, it’s a rout. [...]

But even comparing last week’s Countdown to the Factor’s 2nd quarter average shows that Olbermann cut a good 10% off of O’Reilly’s lead in just five days. O’Reilly has taken plenty of vacations that did not result in him losing to Countdown.

Hey Billo, Keith doesn't need a loofah prop to turn on his audience.