Ed Morrissey at Hot Air passed along some encouraging news today from the ratings, under the heading "Implosion: MSNBC Still Cratering With New Line-Up -- And CNN's Not Far Behind."
Somehow, vigilantly anti-Trump programming isn't a ratings dynamo in the second term. Activists on the Left think the Democrats are worthless and weak, and apparently so are the Democrat-enabling TV networks. First, there's Mediaite as MSNBC "lands with a thud."
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.
Rachel Maddow's stepping down from the nightly grind again after 100 days is making Jen Psaki look like an early flop. From the Daily Mail:
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.
She's not alone. The Weeknight show with Symone Sanders, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez is flailing. It "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."
CNN also reported similar record lows. The network reported just 81,000 viewers in the prime-time 25-54 age demographic. Despite the Original Sin book tour, The Lead with Jake Tapper experienced its worst month since August 2015.
Meanwhile, Fox News was happy to point out they beat out ABC in weekday primetime, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. The network averaged 2.9 million total viewers in weekday primetime, making it the fourth highest-rated network in all of television.
Fox News Channel also surpassed ESPN during weekday primetime during coverage of the NBA and NHL playoffs. So it would seem one side of the political divide remains depressed, and the other is happily engaged in the political world.
