NBC Denies Hiring Psychologist For MTP

Maybe NBC hired a "psychological consultant" to study why David Gregory's Meet the Press is stumbling in the ratings — or maybe it was a brand consultant as the network claims. Either way, writes Phillip Bump at The Wire,  instead of trying to figure out what Gregory is doing wrong, they should have tried to figure out what Univision is doing right.

Gregory's travails after taking over for Tim Russert are by now legendary, with Meet the Press' audience dropping substantially and repeatedly. NBC is consistently third in the Sunday morning ratings, prompting that visit from the "psychological consultant." "The idea, according to a network spokeswoman, Meghan Pianta," Farhi writes, "was 'to get perspective and insight from people who know him best.'" NBC says that it was "a brand consultant — not, as reported, a psychological one — to better understand how its anchor connects."

Viewership numbers haven't dropped substantially since the NBC-Russert era. It's the same general pool of people that the four big networks are fighting over, as Nielsen data shows. The problem is that Gregory is less popular in that pool, and/or that format changes to Meet the Press are less popular.

What's interesting is who's in that pool. In 2012, Pew Research looked at the demographics of various media properties, including the Sunday morning talk shows. The only things that skewed older were Fox pundit shows and the everyday network news.

Each week, the percentage of people watching ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox who are outside the 25 to 54 age group averages between 67 and 71 percent. That means about two-thirds of the audience is over the age of 55.

But look at that purple line at the bottom. That's Univision's Spanish-language show Al Punto, a talk show hosted by Jorge Ramos. On average, it's about 53 percent out of demographic. Meaning it's about half in the target demographic. It's far fewer viewers, to be sure, but it's a much better make-up.

There are obvious explanations for that, according to Bump, including that the median age of the Latino population in the United States is lower than that of the white population. But it also means that Univision is getting younger people to watch a Sunday morning talk show.

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