MSNBC’s Audience Sliced in Half as Viewers Flee Post-Election

 

The Wrap

MSNBC’s Audience Sliced in Half as Viewers Flee Post-Election

Sean Burch

Wed, November 27, 2024 at 7:48 PM GMT+12 min read

https://www.yahoo.com/news/msnbc-audience-sliced-half-viewers-184840336.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMo6neBgv67cPboTEiFpM2QBTREWv4SGyYnNvNN3QXYlnZAAwxVeu9gDbluRB0uY1FOv23F-xVrHGxu6INr1ad79Wh_G_7qQD-68kFse26SCEy53OsRCyDk6JRMV0o8A29rponlTtJ8jAwT7eHsuVk3MjzeC4-gc1EXEWxf_zXrM

 

Prime time has gotten ugly for MSNBC. The struggling news network has lost more than half of its audience since Election Night, as viewers have fled MSNBC after Donald Trump won his second White House term earlier this month against Kamala Harris.

 

Here are the grisly figures for MSNBC: the network has pulled in 661,000 prime time viewers on average post-election, compared to the 1.34 million viewers it averaged this year heading into November 5. That equals a 50.7% drop in viewership since the election.

 

A ratings dip following the election was anticipated, according to a network source, and the internal belief is that ratings will start to pickup in January, following Trump’s inauguration. The network source also pointed out MSNBC suffered a similar ratings decline following the 2016 election, and also after President Joe Biden’s ill-fated debate with Trump in June.

 

CNN’s post-election slide hasn’t been much better, either, with its prime time audience declining 39.4% during that same time period. (CNN went from 739,000 prime time viewers on average before the election to 448,000 viewers on average after the election.)

 

Fox News, on the other hand, has seen its prime time viewership increase since Election Day. The right-leaning network has averaged 2.96 million prime time viewers over the past three weeks, which is up 24.4% from the 2.38 million viewers it averaged heading into the election.

 

The ratings drop for MSNBC comes amid an eventful month for the company. Last week, Comcast announced a spinoff plan that would create a separate company, dubbed SpinCo, that would house CNBC, MSNBC, E!, Golf Channel, Oxygen and Syfy. Combined, those channels generated $7 billion in sales between September 2023 and September 2024. Comcast will retain its Peacock streaming service, Bravo and NBC.

 

The spinoff news also comes as some of MSNBC’s linchpin shows have struggled following the election. In particular, “Morning Joe” has been hard hit, with viewers ditching the show after co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed they had met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election. Last week, TheWrap reported “Morning Joe” viewership was down 43% since the hosts talked about their Trump meeting.

 

MSNBC’s future has become a hot topic in media circles of late, following the spinoff news. Elon Musk has joked several times about buying the network, including sharing a racy meme about buying MSNBC. He’s also posted a photoshopped picture of him, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eating McDonalds while on an MSNBC set.

 

Musk may have competition if he actually wants to buy MSNBC. On Tuesday, CNN’s Brian Stelter reported a billionaire with “liberal bonafides” was also looking to buy the network.

 

The post MSNBC’s Audience Sliced in Half as Viewers Flee Post-Election appeared first on TheWrap.