The Next Open Thread

by DemFromCT

Having lost at least three friends on that day, 9/11 anniversaries are extremely depressing in these parts. So many of my neighbors and friends are in the same situation. We go out of our way not to watch TV, and really look forward to tomorrow.

That's among the many reasons we resent Bush's politicization of today. So, in that regard, it's interesting to hear that the ratings for the Path to 9/11 debacle weren't very good. From Think Progress:

               Path to 9/11 Trounced By Football, Ties CBS Rerun                          

Apparently, there isn’t a big audience for myths about 9/11. Preliminary ratings information show that Path to 9/11 was not only trounced by Sunday Night Football, it only managed to tie a rerun of a CBS documentary about 9/11.

A summary:

SHOW	RATING	SHARE
NFL Football (NBC)	15.1	23
9/11 (CBS, rerun)	8.2	12
Path to 9/11 (ABC)	8.2	12

Looks like predictions that the effort to correct Path to 9/11’s inaccuracies would improve ABC’s ratings were wrong.

That doesn't excuse ABC and Disney, but it says good things about the wisdom of Americans. Too bad the Giants lost. Oh, well, it's still baseball season and the Yankees now have the best record in the American League.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

if you want to get somber, read about some real heroes and how the Bush EPA screwed them.

[Redshift]

Thanks for putting it in those terms, Dem. I'm in much the same situation. I'm mostly avoiding many of the places I usually spend most of my time, because people are endlessly talking about things I can't bear to hear about today.

Through it all, some part of me is still an optimist, waiting for the time when this day can be what it should be, a memorial and day of remembrance. That may be yet another thing they have destroyed forever, but I won't give up hope.

[freepatriot]

abc' propaganda failed to attract an audience ???

too bad

abc's gop falsehoods DID MANAGE to attract a BOYCOTT OF DISNEY and abc

wanna bet the BOYCOTT does better than the repuglican propaganda did ???

abc can KISS MY ASS

if you were gonna sacrifice your broadcasting business, you should hold out for better than a 12 share

[Sara]

Actually, I watched the CBS 9/11 program, largely because I have just gotten rid of my ancient Sony TV that had a totally tempremental picture tube -- sometimes insisting the world was all shades of grey, other times shades of pink with an occassional streak of yellow, and while it could be tuned, once it was warm for more than an hour, it would revert to a program of ramdom color choices. I had tried to watch the French Video about the training of a NYC Firefighter that just happened to cover 9/11 -- but it was totally unsatisfactory in pink if I remember, so the new flat panel treatment with multiple bold colors was my choice. I dislike aspects of the edit, but the video is exceptional.

I suspect for years we will be confronted with 9/11 as subject of either history, political analysis or indeed fiction -- and rather than dismiss it, perhaps we should be demanding fairly high standards for it. CNN's recent treatment of Peter Bergan's Bin Laden Book, for instance, is so much better done than much else previously attempted. They actually managed to include aspects of Saudi culture, Sudan culture, Egyptian Jihadi culture and how it differs from others -- and build a working assumption regarding just how the transnational aspects of relevant cultural material mixed into the formation of al-Qaeda. Berger's analysis may be incomplete, but at least his book, and the CNN film show evidence of serious effort at intellectual interpretation.

[Warren]

Wow, that's a phenomenally bad rating, especially since there was alleged "Clinton fame" causing a groundswell of interest in the darn thing.

[4jkb4ia]

Rams win!!
I am impressed the Giants came as close as they did. The announcers properly pointed out that Indianapolis does not have their old running game.

On the last sentence, no comment.

[ab initio]

Sara

I watched the CNN show based on Bergen's book primarily because I like Christiane Amanpour. It gave a good background of the genesis of Al Qaeda and the evolution of OBL.

[John Casper]

Ditto what Redshift said, thanks DemFromCT.

[rj]

I'll echo Redshift and John Casper; I'm in pretty much the same boat, so thanks for saying it, DemFromCT.

Some commenter somewhere theorized that the campaign to keep CBS from airing their movie in prime time was an effort to maximize the available audience for Triumph of the -- er, Path to 9/11; given how many CBS stations succumbed to that pressure, the ratings story looks even more interesting.

BTW, did anyone see Bush with Matt Lauer on Olbermann? (Or on Today, I guess.) Matt isn't exactly Helen Thomas, but he actually went a few gentle rounds with Bush on torture. Bush looked like he could've hit him, and his responses became the cartoon distillation of the scarum strategy, completely personalized: "I'm protecting your kids," "there are people out there who want to kill you and your kids." How much more revealing could that have been? I swear I expect Republicans all over the country to start popping out from under our beds in Bush masks yelling "Boo!"

[Jodi]

DemFromCT,

perhaps you should add the 911 shows together to get a better sense of what people like.