MSNBC Is a Mess

MSNBC is an M-E-S-S, and Rachel Maddow is back to try and clean it up. For the first time in four years, Rashida Jones, the news network’s president for the last four years, will not be right beside her. Jones’ exit was reported Tuesday, January 14.

Maddow though will be back to nightly at 9 p.m. starting Monday, January 20, but only running through April 30, MSNBC announced on Monday. That marks the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, which are often the most active for a new administration. For MSNBC, the most liberal of the major cable news networks, the return to a MAGA White House is an opportunity to turn some things around.

Five nights of “Rachel Maddow Show” means Alex Wagner is out… into the field, reporting under some “Trumpland” banner for the same duration. Wagner’s work will focus on “the impacts of Trump’s early policies and promises on the electorate,” per MSNBC. Come May, Wagner will return to the time slot she (mostly) took over from Maddow back in 2022.

“This is a consequential next chapter in American politics. The moment we’re in requires us to cover the early days of the new administration from all over the country — from the nation’s capital, where policy is being implemented, to talking to those in key communities and constituencies impacted by those policies,” Jones, the MSNBC president since 2021, said as part of the announcement. “No one is better equipped to bring those stories from the field to MSNBC viewers than our intrepid Alex Wagner.”

Ah yes, that segues perfectly to our next point. The very next day, on Tuesday, January 14, Jones resigned as network president. Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC’s SVP of content strategy, is interim president. The decision to step down is said to have been entirely Jones’ choice. The timing here is simply to align with our new/old POTUS’ second and (hopefully, Constitutionally) final four-year term.

The 9 p.m. rewind was among Jones’ final moves, an effort to pull MSNBC’s TV ratings out of the toilet. MSNBC’s primetime viewership has dropped 57 percent since Trump defeated Kamala Harris in November 2024, according to Nielsen, with even worse declines among adults under 55. Fellow left-leaning cable news network CNN has seen serious losses too — down 45 percent overall — but not to MSNBC’s degree. Viewer declines post-election are to be expected, especially for the channels primarily serving the losing party, but those drops are pretty extreme. The conservative-leaning Fox News Channel’s viewership is basically flat since the election.

Maddow is MSNBC’s biggest star, and this one-night-a-week thing she’s been doing for the past two-and-a-half years just isn’t cutting it. (Maddow reduced her TV-anchoring workload to focus on documentaries and podcasts.) “Alex Wagner Tonight” ratings were already way down from “Maddow,” and since the election, Wagner has drawn fewer than half the viewers of Maddow Mondays.

Clearly, MSNBC could use the kickstart. Kutler has her hands full.

Alex Wagner is going back into the field — until May

But it is not just a new president MSNBC will soon be getting — it’s also getting a new parent company.

MSNBC will soon be banished to “SpinCo,” a new independent entity also consisting of CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E!, Syfy, Golf Channel, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, and Sports Engine. NBC, Peacock and Bravo will remain at NBCUniversal, a Comcast company, along with the studios and theme parks.

If Interim President Kutler is MSNBC’s greatest hope, the incoming president president may be SpinCo’s biggest roadblock. On Tuesday, after catching an unflattering (for him) “Late Night with Seth Meyers” segment, Trump made a semi-veiled threat to Comcast.

“How bad is Seth Meyers on NBC, a ‘network’ run by a truly bad group of people — Remember, they also run MSDNC,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers the other night, the first time in months, and every time I watch this moron I feel an obligation to say how dumb and untalented he is, merely a slot filler for the Scum that runs Comcast.”

(There’s a point coming, we swear. Oh, and that “scum” would be Chairman Brian L. Roberts.)

“These guys should be paying a lot of money for the right to give these ‘in kind’ contributions to the Radical Left Democrat Party,” Trump continued. “These are not shows or entertainment, they are simply political hits, 100% of the time, to me and the Republican Party. Comcast should pay a BIG price for this!”

Comcast will need the Trump administration’s appointed regulatory leaders to approve its SpinCo spinoff.

Jones was named president of MSNBC in 2021, becoming the first Black executive to lead a major television news network. Read her farewell email to staff (obtained by IndieWire) here:

Team,
After four incredible years at the helm of MSNBC and 11 years at NBCU, I have made the decision to pursue new opportunities. 

I shared this decision with Mark, who has been incredibly supportive and has asked me to stay on for the next few months to help guide the network during this transitional period.

I came to this decision over the holidays while reflecting on our remarkable journey and the many successes we’ve achieved together as a team. This has been the most rewarding chapter of my professional career and I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished, which has been made possible only by you.

This team is the best in the business, and I will miss being in the trenches (and control rooms!) with you. The people here at MSNBC are what make this place truly special, and our shared mission is what has always united us: to keep our viewers, readers and listeners well-informed, provide critical context, ask tough questions, speak hard truths, say the quiet part out loud, and always adhere to the facts, without fear or favor.

I am forever grateful for the shared experiences, the many mentors and mentees from over the years, coffee-fueled late nights and early mornings, and the lessons learned along the way.  

Most importantly, I am more confident than ever that MSNBC is well-positioned for the future.

Rashida Jones