As MSNBC suffers a steep ratings drop in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, network President Rashida Jones is considering a possible exit from the job early next year, Oliver Darcy reported Tuesday.
According to Darcy, a spokesperson for Jones denied the report; NBCUniversal representatives had no comment. But citing unnamed sources close to the matter, Darcy writes in his Status newsletter that her potential exit would only come at some point after Trump is sworn in for his second term on Jan. 20, 2025.
Darcy also reports however that no decision has been made and that Jones may well remain in the job where, for the most part, she has had a highly successful tenure.
Nevertheless, the last few weeks have been a nadir for the liberal-leaning cable news channel, which has seen a 50.7% prime time audience drop since election night. As of Nov. 27, MSNBC averaged 661,000 prime time viewers in the weeks following Trump’s victory. That’s down from the 1.34 million it averaged prior to the shock outcome.
Some of the network’s linchpins have struggled hard, particularly “Morning Joe,” which as TheWrap reported last month lost 43% of viewers after co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed they had met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election.
In fairness, it’s not unusual for politically oriented news channels to take hits to overall ratings after events the target audience finds disappointing. Fox News took a serious hit after the 2020 election, at one point even being eclipsed by much lower-rated conservative rival Newsmax.
And MSNBC saw a similar ratings crash (though not quite as steep) after Trump’s first unlikely election victory in 2016, as well as in June of this year after the disastrous debate between Trump and Joe Biden.
But Jones’ stewardship of MSNBC has overall been an undeniable success. Since taking over in 2020, she’s presided over several years of strong ratings growth, culminating in MSNBC handily overtaking CNN in total and demo ratings for the last several years.
It remains to be seen whether MSNBC will bounce back as it has after previous drops. But if it does, it may still face an uncertain future, as parent company Comcast is planning to spin it, as well as CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, Oxygen and Syfy into a new standalone company entirely separate from NBC, which will remain with the Peacock streaming service and Bravo.
There’s also a slim chance MSNBC could end up with an entirely new owner altogether, as CNN’s Brian Stelter reported a week ago that a mystery billionaire with so-called “liberal bona fides” is interested in buying it.
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