"Right now, they're trying to stem the bleeding," said TV news analyst and blogger Brian Stelter of tvnewser.com.

The medical metaphor may sound dramatic, but it speaks to MSNBC's persistent struggle. As it celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, MSNBC continues to be the also-ran among the big three cable news outlets.

Fox News, also turning 10 this year, is the current ratings champ. It has succeeded by presenting itself as a "fair and balanced" alternative to other news sources that it says aren't as fair.

CNN, in second place, plays up its rich history as the granddaddy of cable news. After all, CNN, not MCNBC or Fox News, was around for such seminal cable news events as the first Gulf War and the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase.

Then there's MSNBC, whose niche is something of a moving target.

"I think they've changed their direction many times," said Jack Wakschlag, CNN's senior vice president of research. "I think they've changed their management many times."

The latest change put Abrams, 40, in the hot seat. The son of prominent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, he is a 1988 graduate of Duke University who served as student body vice president.

In the months before being named general manager, Abrams had become a leading authoritative media voice on the Duke lacrosse rape case through his former MSNBC legal show, "The Abrams Report."

Abrams was not available to comment for this report.

Although still in third place in August, MSNBC was up 8 percent over a year ago in the coveted 25-54 demographic.

Still, MSNBC's viewership is nowhere near the other two.

"It seems roughly that Fox equals two CNNs, and CNN equals two MSNBCs," said Stelter, summing up the ratings hierarchy.

Stelter thinks MSNBC has taken some positive steps since Abrams took over.

"They've done visual things you can see on the air, like change the graphics package," he said. "I see a little more emphasis on news that viewers want, rather than news that viewers need."

News that viewers want, apparently, includes barbed segments about other news organizations. Tucker Carlson, whose new show "Tucker" runs in Abrams' old "Abrams Report" spot, has a segment called "Beat the Press," in which he gives competitors such as CNN's Anderson Cooper and Fox's Bill O'Reilly a hard time for on-air mistakes and perceived blowhard statements.

Playing up personality

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," regularly razzes about competing news outlets. And he likes to make fun of "Hollyweird."

Then there's Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's nightly "Countdown." Unlike Carlson and Scarborough, Olbermann leans liberal, which could be his (and MSNBC's) niche in the heavily conservative world of cable punditry.

Olbermann's recent anti-war, anti-Bush "Special Comment" segments have become must-see TV for kindred spirits, and they're a hit on the video Web site YouTube.

Plus, no one goes after Fox News' biggest star, O'Reilly, with as much glee. Olbermann mockingly refers to his 8 p.m. rival as the "Big Giant Head" and "Bill Orally." Once, O'Reilly got so steamed that he started an online petition to have MSNBC remove Olbermann from its schedule.

"[Olbermann] is a draw, and he is a personality," said Amy Mitchell, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "One of the things that cable has been its most successful at is its top-rated shows are driven by personalities."

MSBNC has seen a wide variety of personalities pass through -- Charles Grodin, Phil Donahue, Maury Povich and Connie Chung, Alan Keyes, Laura Ingraham. The list goes on.

But only a few -- such as Chris Matthews' "Hardball" -- have stuck. Ratings overall have been disappointing from the start.

Representatives of MSNBC and Fox News declined requests for interviews with their personalities and executives for this story. MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines did answer some questions by e-mail.

"In the four months since Dan has been general manager, there has been a continuing effort to build on the success of 'Countdown' and 'Hardball' in primetime by complementing it with documentary programming at 10 and 11 p.m.," Gaines wrote.

An online 'doc' future?

MSNBC went on the air in 1996 as a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC. It was supposed to draw young, tech-savvy viewers and online users.

Stelter predicts that if MSNBC is still around for another 10 years, it may be primarily showing documentaries, such as the investigative and crime-themed one-hour specials that run on MSNBC's nighttime "Doc Block."

Or, MSNBC could vanish from TV and operate just as a Web site, Stelter said.

That's something MSNBC does right, with 27 million unique visitors in August. The msnbc.com site was No. 2 in the Nielsen list of online current events and global news destinations, behind Yahoo! News.

"One video of Matt Lauer aired 2 million times on one day on msnbc.com," Stelter said. "That's amazing to me."