Rachel Maddow was averaging 4.3 million viewers in January and 3.7 million in February, beating out Fox New's most popular show, "The Five." But since Trump's return to office, she has virtually disappeared from the network, doing her show only once a week.
Former Press Secretary Jen Psaki has stepped in, but she has lost nearly half of Maddow's viewers. Meanwhile, the network has gotten rid of several other far-Left hosts, which Nick Fondacaro of Media Research Center (MRC) says has upset their core viewers.
"MSNBC sort of shot themselves in the foot with this," he tells AFN. "They fired all these radical personalities, and they have a base that's very active, very activist."
He recalls Joy Reid's firing in February; some of the former hosts lit up the second-place cable news network with the typical leftist slur at the time, and she still suggests her race had something to do with the decision.
"You saw the more radical elements sort of stirring up this storm against the network with accusations of racism," Fondacaro notes. "Now that base has turned against them, and they're turning off the TV."
He says the new lineup features more establishment Democrats than radicals.
"You have now Jen Psaki, Michael Steele, Symone Sanders, and Alicia Menendez, the daughter of Senator Bob Menendez (New Jersey)," the MRC spokesman lists. "You have all these people with very deep ties to the party."
Considering who the network has replaced the radical hosts with, Fondacaro calls it "a microcosm of how the Democratic Party has been handling itself."
Since the 2024 presidential election, MSNBC's primetime ratings have plummeted by 53%.
