MSNBC Boss Demands Investigation Into Fox’s ‘Impossible’ Ratings

MSNBC President Phil Griffin thinks something is rotten in Denmark… or at least Studio B. He’s demanding a full investigation into the mystery behind right-leaning rival Fox News’ consistently high ratings, and has implied that there might be something fishy going on.

Maybe he’s just having a hard time accepting that no one watches his network.

“Monday we had a really good day in the key demographic, on the night that Fox News debuted their three shows, we either tied or beat them in those hours,” Griffin told a group of his employees at a briefing regarding the re-launch of MSNBC.com.

“Tuesday – you guys should be doing some investigations – I have never seen it in all my years of cable, same overnight, same everything, and they doubled their ratings in a day? It is impossible,” Griffin bemoaned. “I have never seen it. They did election night numbers in the demo Tuesday.”

According to Mediaite, Griffin is technically correct. Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File made a mediocre debut Monday night, but her ratings increased over the week in the key demographic by 116 percent. She saw a 34 percent overall increase in total viewers, hitting a 2.7 million milestone.

Additionally, Fox beat both CNN and MSNBC in the key demo and overall viewers.

How is this possible? Well, Griffin suggested that the ratings increase was suspicious somehow, stopping short of screaming “conspiracy!” Given it’s controversial nature, it might be tempting to think that Fox’s ratings are suspicious. But thinking that they somehow rig the ratings to benefit Fox is a pretty heavy accusation, even if it’s not entirely unprecedented.

Either way, THR has reached out to Nielsen for comment. They have not yet responded as of this posting.

What do you think? Is MSNBC’s Phil Griffin onto some sort of ratings conspiracy, or is it more likely that he’s just frustrated with his drowning network?