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MSNBC viewers proceed to provide Morning Joe the chilly shoulder following the revelation that hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski trekked to Mar-a-Lago to fulfill with President-elect Donald Trump.
The precipitous rankings drop comes on the worst potential time for the morning discuss present. On Wednesday, dad or mum firm Comcast introduced that it was spinning off most of NBCUniversal’s cable channel lineup amid rampant cord-cutting — together with cable information networks MSNBC and CNBC.
A consultant for MSNBC didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In response to Nielsen, the four-hour broadcast of Morning Joe drew solely 680,000 whole viewers on Tuesday, representing a 12 p.c dip from Monday’s airing. Moreover, this system solely averaged 86,000 viewers within the coveted promoting demographic of adults aged 25-54, additionally down 12 p.c from the day gone by.
In comparison with the typical viewership for 2024, Morning Joe’s whole viewers on Tuesday was down 38 p.c and 37 p.c in the important thing demo. Tuesday additionally represented the third-lowest-rated Morning Joe broadcast of the 12 months. This additional continues the slide that started the second Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed on Monday that that they had lately sat down with Trump to “restart communications.”
The second the husband-and-wife pair opened Monday’s present by dramatically saying they’d sought to fix fences with the incoming president, after spending years describing him as a menace to democracy and a “fascist,” droves of MSNBC’s devoted anti-Trump viewers flipped the channel.
Whereas it’s typical for the present to develop its viewers all through the morning, Morning Joe misplaced viewers instantly after the announcement. In the course of the 6 a.m. block, this system averaged 839,000 whole viewers and 113,000 within the 25-54 demographic. The subsequent hour, although, general viewership dropped to 694,000 and sunk 38 p.c within the demo.
Amid the extreme blowback from viewers and critics alike, with some blasting the hosts’ “disgusting show of obeisance in advance” whereas accusing them of being “double agents,” the MSNBC stars have dismissed the criticism. “I noticed for the primary time what an enormous disconnect there was between social media and the true world as a result of we had been flooded with telephone calls from individuals all day, actually around the globe—all very constructive, very supportive,” Scarborough informed viewers on Tuesday.
“They want FEMA there at this level—that’s the extent of catastrophe they created,” one rival community govt told media reporter Oliver Darcy concerning the mess Morning Joe wants to wash up with its viewers. Even some MSNBC colleagues have slammed the celebs’ “cowardice,” with host Katie Phang tweeting: “Normalizing Trump is a foul thought. Interval.”
In the meantime, sources told CNN that the first motivation behind Brezinski’s and Scarborough’s Mar-a-Lago go to was their worry of MAGA retribution. “In response to two sources with direct data of the matter, Scarborough and Brzezinski had been credibly involved that they might face governmental and authorized harassment from the incoming Trump administration,” Brian Stelter reported.
Puck’s Dylan Byers added that the pair’s fears that Trump would search revenge “grew to become much more acute” as soon as MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz was nominated as legal professional normal. Particularly since former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon instantly boasted that Gaetz would go after their community for making an attempt “to destroy” the incoming president.
Brzezinski and Scarborough “are afraid of retribution and of Gaetz opening an investigation” into the baseless conspiracy idea that Scarborough murdered an intern in 2001, in keeping with Byers. After Trump’s once-cozy relationship with the MSNBC energy couple soured following his first election victory, the president-elect repeatedly peddled the unhinged story — apparently on the urging of Gaetz. A community spokesperson disputed this characterization and denied it.
Although Morning Joe’s current rankings woes could considerably be self-inflicted, MSNBC as an entire has seen dejected viewers flee since Trump gained. Final week, the community noticed its lowest rankings in 25 years in the important thing 25-54 demo, shedding 50 p.c of its viewers in comparison with the remainder of 2024. Whereas viewership at its MAGA rival Fox Information has surged to record levels, MSNBC’s primetime lineup solely averaged 684,000 whole viewers final week.
On prime of all that, Comcast’s resolution to maneuver MSNBC and different slowly dying cable channels right into a separate firm has left many MSNBC staff worried about their futures — together with Joe and Mika.
“I could possibly be fully fallacious: we may all be fired a 12 months from now,” Scarborough quipped on Wednesday. “Or tomorrow,” Brzezinski added.
