Rush Limbaugh on Thursday mocked new MSNBC host Ronan Farrow, dismissing the 26-year-old, saying, "He's never done anything. He's never gotten good at anything." MSNBC President Phil Griffen explained to the New York Times how he was originally wowed by Farrow, who is either the son of Woody Allen or Frank Sinatra: "Within 20 minutes, I wanted to hire him...He got it."
Limbaugh translated, "In other words, if you're young, if you're charismatic, if you're good-looking, if you're hip, if you're cool, if you're glib -- if you have all the superficial traits that we can say you have -- then that will trump experience, knowledge, humility, and hard work."
So this young man's been thrown into a circumstance and anointed success before he's enjoyed any, and anointed genius before he's proved it. He's been throw into a world, he does not understand television, he's never done it. He doesn't understand media, other than make sure it says the right thing at Page Six. That's the extent. And so now the bottom is dropping out, the bottom's falling out because broadcasting is like any other business: There are traits successful people in it have. And they're learned. Like anything else, it takes experience, hard work. You've got to fail.
Hard work. You gotta fail; you've gotta learn; you've gotta deal with certain different kinds of people. You've gotta learn how to relate to an audience, connect to an audience. None of that. Everything has been given in this case, simply by virtue of genealogy, just like the Kennedys. Anointed geniuses, anointed brilliance, anointed simply because of the sperm cells. And the same thing's happened to this guy.
The ratings back up Limbaugh's contention. TV Newser explained:
A tough debut week for new MSNBC hosts Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid, as their respective shows at 1pmET and 2pmET lost ground as compared to last year.
Farrow’s program’s numbers were worse, drawing both the lowest total viewers and A25-54 demo viewers of all of MSNBC’s shows on both Wednesday (260,000/52,000) and Friday (201,000/54,000). His program’s best day was Thursday with 320,000 total viewers and 79,000 demo viewers.
Overall, “Ronan Farrow Daily” averaged 243,000 total viewers and 55,000 demo viewers for the week. Compared to the same week last year with “Andrea Mitchell Reports” at 1pmET, “Ronan Farrow Daily” is down -40% in total viewers and -42% in the demo.
