MSNBC host Rachel Maddow got some more bad news this week after she criticized her network following the firing of race-baiting host Joy Reid, the demotion of fill-in host Alex Wagner, and the promotion of former President Joe Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Her criticism comes on the heels of the network revealing that Reid’s and Wagner’s shows would be canceled as part of a broader effort to revamp its programming, with weekend shows hosted by Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, and Ayman Mohyeldin also being scrapped.
“She is leaving the network altogether and that is very, very, very hard to take. I am 51 years old,” Maddow said during a show segment in February. “I have been gainfully employed since I was 12 and I have had so many different kinds of jobs, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
“But in all of the jobs I have had in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid,” Maddow said of her far-left friend.
“I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her,” Maddow continued. “I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, and personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call and I understand that. But that’s what I think.”
“I will tell you. It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two — count them — two non-white hosts in primetime, both of our non-white hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend,” Maddow said. “And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”
Following those remarks, Maddow was notified that she is losing some of her production staff to job cuts and reassignments.
“Maddow, the biggest star and highest-rated anchor at MSNBC, will get to keep her executive producer, Cory Gnazzo, and several other senior producers,” The Guardian reported, citing inside sources.
“But the rest of Maddow’s team – along with producers who worked on the other cancelled shows, hosted by Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Ayman Mohyeldin and José Díaz-Balart – have been given the option to claim severance or reapply for new roles at the network, the people said,” the outlet added.
This entire year has been brutal for MSNBC in terms of ratings.
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Psaki has maintained an average audience of 971,000 people since The Briefing with Jen Psaki premiered on MSNBC last month. Since Psaki took over full-time hosting responsibilities from Rachel Maddow and Alex Wagner, the network’s 9 p.m. ratings have dropped by roughly 50%.
The drop-off is even more severe in the important group of ages 24-54, where Psaki received only 78,000 views. This represents a 52% drop from the 161,000 viewers Maddow and Wagner attracted from the same group this year.
MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler made the modifications to revitalize prime time and extend its appeal. Kutler canceled Joy Reid’s show, The ReidOut, which had an average of 955,000 viewers in its final month, compared to 772,000 for the successor show, The Weeknight.
In May, MSNBC had an average of 877,000 viewers during primetime, which runs from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. This is a 24% decrease over the rest of the year, with an average of 73,000 viewers aged 25 to 54, a 34% decrease.
Some feel Psaki has made some headway, although MSNBC falls well short of Fox News’ primetime audience average of 2.46 million viewers.
Fox News’ The Five had the most viewers among cable news shows in May, with 3.77 million, followed by Jesse Watters Primetime with 3.23 million.
