Oh, how the mighty have fallen. MSNBC, once the darling of liberal cable news junkies, is hitting rock bottom—and it seems they’re bringing their entire primetime lineup with them. Ratings have plummeted, audiences are fleeing, and even the network’s star players are under fire. If the situation gets any worse, the network might have to start holding bake sales to keep the lights on.
Let’s start with the numbers because the ratings don’t lie (unlike some of MSNBC’s programming). The Nielsen reports are grim: flagship programs like “Alex Wagner Tonight,” “Inside with Jen Psaki,” and “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” have all hit all-time lows. “Alex Wagner Tonight,” a Tuesday night staple, managed to scrape together just 595,000 viewers in early December—a catastrophic showing for a program that debuted with so much fanfare just last year.
Jen Psaki’s show isn’t faring much better, barely attracting 651,000 viewers despite her pedigree as a former Biden press secretary. As for Lawrence O’Donnell? His once-reliable audience in the 25-54 demographic is now in freefall, with just 61,000 tuning in—a record low since his show began in 2010.
MSNBC just set a 20 year ratings low. Just 38,000 viewers in the 24-54 age group last week. That would not fill a college football stadium in September. Apparently no one wants to be constantly lied to. pic.twitter.com/uYa392ajao
— Mike Netter (@nettermike) December 7, 2024
And the network’s woes don’t stop there. Rachel Maddow, the once-reigning queen of left-wing commentary, is hemorrhaging viewers faster than MSNBC can spin excuses. Since President-elect Trump’s victory, Maddow has lost an eye-popping 43% of her audience. Yet somehow, MSNBC rewarded her floundering performance with a lucrative five-year contract. Go figure.
Meanwhile, “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough aren’t faring much better. Their ratings have tanked by 35%, and their credibility took an even bigger hit when it came out that they had a cozy off-the-record meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. For a pair who’ve spent years calling Trump a “fascist,” this move reeked of hypocrisy—and their audience noticed.
Ratings for CNN and MSNBC:
— CNN is at its lowest point since June 2001
— MSNBC is at its lowest in 30 years
— 36 other cable channels have better ratings than MSNBC, including The Cartoon Network.Not good.https://t.co/XvT2pE372F
— OutKick (@Outkick) December 5, 2024
The timing couldn’t be worse. Comcast recently announced plans to spin off NBCUniversal assets, including MSNBC, into a standalone company. Without NBC to cushion its losses, MSNBC will soon have to sink or swim on its own merits—a terrifying prospect given its current trajectory. Executives are now faced with a brutal decision: double down on their echo-chamber programming or bring in pro-Trump voices to re-engage the half of the country they’ve alienated. Judging by their track record, don’t expect a sudden epiphany from MSNBC leadership.
What makes all of this even more deliciously ironic is that MSNBC has had plenty of news to cover lately. Between President Biden’s controversial pardoning of Hunter Biden, the shocking United Healthcare CEO shooting, and the overthrow of Syria’s Assad regime, there’s been no shortage of material. Yet somehow, MSNBC has managed to bore or alienate its audience so thoroughly that even these headlines couldn’t save their viewership.
Let’s call it what it is: a full-blown “tune-out” phenomenon. For years, MSNBC has doubled down on its partisan, out-of-touch brand of journalism. Now, liberal audiences are over it, and conservatives never showed up to begin with. The result? A network spiraling into irrelevance. If MSNBC doesn’t course-correct soon, they might just find themselves sharing the airwaves with infomercials and reruns of “To Catch a Predator.” That’s what happens when you bet it all on outrage and forget to deliver substance.
