Six months ago, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win, MSNBC saw its audience drop by half nearly overnight. Even the New York Times wondered whether their audience had switched teams and fled to Fox News, where ratings had soared after Trump’s triumph. At the time, however, I cautioned that crushing losses usually result in brief periods of audience disinterest, and that upcoming political fights with Trump could eventually bring most of their viewers back.
Well … they’re still waiting. The Left has already had plenty of high-profile and angry fights with Trump, and MSNBC also decided to launch a new prime-time lineup this month to attract those viewers back and find new ones. And so far, the ratings have not even budged off their post-election crater, according to Mediaite:
MSNBC’s new prime time lineup, which debuted on May 5th, failed to connect with viewers in its first three weeks as the network saw its audience decline to near record lows – especially in the key 25-54 age demographic.
Overall for May, MSNBC dropped 41% in the primetime demo and 34% in the total day demo compared to May of 2024. In total viewers, the network was down 33% across total day and 24% in prime time. MSNBC’s total day demo viewership sank to 49,000 average viewers and 73,000 in prime time – its second worst ever showing for a month behind January of 2025.
Clearly, MSNBC has deeper issues with its audience than just post-election blues. It’s not even the context of the year-on-year comparison, which could be a little unfair, given that the 2024 campaign was in full swing in May 2024, not to mention Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan. The basis number for that comparison would likely be higher than MSNBC’s normal non-election-year traffic numbers.
But it’s not just the comparative numbers that look awful. The actual numbers are just atrocious no matter what comparative basis is used. There are likely websites that get better hourly views than MSNBC’s 49K. So what happened? The Daily Mail suggests that the new line-up might be the problem, where MSNBC swapped out Rachel Maddow for … Jen Psaki?
It’s a stinging blow for Jen Psaki who on May 5 took over for Rachel Maddow during the 9pm timeslot from Tuesday to Friday.
Maddow, who’s been the top host on the network for years, previously said she had faith that Joe Biden’s former press secretary would do even better than her in the role. …
The latest ratings for ‘The Briefing with Jen Psaki’ came on May 22, when it failed to crack the coveted 1 million viewer mark. Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, which also airs at 9pm, had 2.3 million total viewers that night.
Psaki’s show also performed dismally with the 25-54 key age demographic, only pulling in 55,000 viewers in that category. By comparison, Hannity had 210,000 viewers in the key demo.
Maddow was either being a good soidier or smoking the drapes when she assured people that Psaki would outperform her. Maddow has the chops for TV; Psaki is as dull as dishwater in every meaning of the phrase. Not only is Psaki one of the least compelling voices on the Left, she’s also part of the fraud that MSNBC spent four years selling its audience — that Joe Biden was Sharp As A Tack®, Running Rings Around Aides Half His Age, and so on. Psaki is still selling that fraud. At least Maddow wasn’t part of the conspiracy that hijacked the presidency, even if she willingly flacked for it.
Did MSNBC really think the way to rebuild their credibility with their audience is to put a fraud at the anchor desk? Seriously?
Psaki’s not the only problem with the new line-up, either:
The Weeknight, which airs at 7pm, had just 707,000 viewers on May 22, but only 56,000 of them were in the key demographic.
The show has an average of 770,000 viewers, which is 36 percent lower than the 1.2 million that watched MSNBC at 7pm this time last year.
Yikes. Whoever made the decisions that created this line-up should find another line of work. Or maybe there’s just no coming back for MSNBC from the hole it dug itself by turning into the Joe Biden Propaganda Channel for the last four years. And we do have some evidence for that theory, based on what’s happening at the other Joe Biden Propaganda Channel, where senility is called “childhood stutter”:
CNN also reported similar record lows.
The network reported just 81,000 viewers in the prime-time 25-54 age demographic.
The Lead with Jake Tapper, one of CNN’s top performing shows, experienced its worst month since August 2015.
As the New York Post notes, that’s a pretty stunning result, given all of the earned media CNN is getting for “The Lead” with the coverage of Tapper’s book:
To promote the project, Tapper has embarked on a wide-ranging book tour that landed him on a variety of podcasts, talk shows and cable news. The book has also been promoted relentlessly across CNN, but the spotlight on Tapper has seemingly failed to give him a boost in viewership.
“The Lead with Jake Tapper” averaged 525,000 total viewers from April 28 through May 25, shedding 25% of CNN’s audience in its timeslot from the same period last year in the process.
By comparison, Fox News offerings “The Five” and “Special Report with Bret Baier” averaged 3.3 million viewers from April 28 through May 25, trouncing Tapper.
The struggles of both MSNBC and CNN reflect the credibility collapse that the Protection Racket Media has created with its audiences. In fact, it also parallels the credibility collapse that Democrats created with voters, and for the same reasons. You can only lie to people and gaslight them about the obvious for so long before they see what you are … and decide they’ve seen enough of you.
