The AP’s David Bauder writes today about the alleged “growing influence” of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” using last week’s McChrystal coverage as anecdotal evidence of the show’s success in Washington/media influence though not necessarily in viewer ratings:

While it’s simplistic to think MSNBC’s morning show influenced [Obama's firing of McChrystal], it’s no stretch that “Morning Joe” helped put McChrystal’s words at the top of the national agenda. “Morning Joe” may not have a lot of viewers, but the show tends to be on in important places. Mike Allen, chief White House correspondent of Politico and a regular on the show, said that a senior Obama administration official told him, “I saw the funnel cloud forming on ‘Morning Joe.’”

On the ratings front:

From Mon-Thurs of last week — we won’t have Friday’s numbers until later this afternoon — “Morning Joe” averaged 464,000 total viewers, which was the second-most in cable news, but still a far cry from FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” which averaged 964,000. In the demo, “Morning Joe” drew 130,000, the smallest A25-54 audience in cable news.

For the month of May, the program averaged 406,000 total viewers and 119,000 in the demo, with the same rank in both categories.