If you are like me and enjoy the Olympic games and are lucky enough to have DVR, you might find yourself using the device so that you can catch as much of the games as you can. The past two mornings (Saturday and Sunday) I have set my DVR for the 4-8 a.m. coverage of the Olympics on MSNBC. What I noticed was something very surprising. At least 95% of the commercials on MSNBC Saturday morning were about the network itself (okay, okay...that is an exaggeration, but you get my point)!
I didn't think to do it on Saturday's coverage, but during today's coverage as I fast forwarded through the commercials I made sure to count each time the MSNBC Convention Coverage commercial appeared. In 4 hours or 240 minutes, the commercial aired 16 times. That's right... the same commercial appeared 4 times an hour (approximately). But that's not all. The ad either came at the beginning or the end of a three MSNBC ad block. In between were advertisements for Countdown or a profile of MSNBC hosts Andrea Mitchell, Keith Olbermann, or Chris Matthews or sometimes a MSNBC Documentary ad. That means that 12 MSNBC commercials ran PER HOUR.
This brings us to a grand total of 48 commercials in 4 hours soley from the network showing the Olympic coverage advertising itself. This isn't just a need to fill a void, however. The powers that be at MSNBC believe they can keep some of the Olympic audience around after the games... and if they do, it might just be the lift the 3rd place cable news network needs. Otherwise, they just lost a lot of potential revenue.
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