The longest-running show on TV, top-rated NBC’s Meet the Press, turns 60 today, continuing to draw politicians and newsmakers who are pushing agendas.
In this media-cluttered age of partisan blogs and contentious face-offs on cable and talk radio, Meet the Press “is a place where people can finish their thoughts and complete their sentences,” says Tim Russert, moderator since 1991. “I think there’s an appreciation for that. The information spectrum out there is big and broad, but I think there’s room for everybody.”
Mirroring an overall decline in network viewership, ratings for Meet the Press and most of its Sunday competitors are down from a decade ago.
But Meet, This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday and CNN’s Late Edition are inexpensive to produce and “offer something to the bottom line” to respective networks, says Tom Rosenstiel of The Project for Excellence in Journalism. (Meet nets a tidy $60 million profit for NBC, the others less.)
Networks also discovered years ago “that they could make news by having newsmakers come on,” Rosenstiel says. “You get in the Monday morning newspapers, and the morning shows feature clips with your logo.”
– By Peter Johnson
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