Decline Sets In at MS NOW as It Slides to Eleventh Place Among Younger Viewers After Minneapolis ICE Story Dies Down

MS NOW’s ratings are dropping amid signs that its much ballyhooed renaissance had everything to do with the news cycle and very little to do with its programming. In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election, then-MSNBC lost about 50 percent of its liberal audience, which was disaffected by President Trump’s victory. The network shuffled its primetime programming — which floundered for much of the last year — and went through a rebrand. It was spun off from NBC and became MS NOW. At the start of 2026, with liberals fired up with outrage at deployment of thousands of ICE and border patrol officers to the Twin Cities and the fatal shooting of two Americans in Minneapolis by immigration officials, the left-wing network saw its ratings tick up. Last week, MS NOW’s president, Rebecca Kutler, announced another shakeup in its programming – demoting Stephanie Ruhle to a late morning shift, ousting Ana Cabrera and giving a show to Los Angeles real estate scion Jacob Soboroff – somehow attributing the ratings boost to the existing anchor lineup. But there are numerous indicators that the left-wing network’s winter ratings boost was less the result of stellar programming and more driven by what events in the news cycle motivate liberals, and what events prompt them to tune out.For the week of March 9, MS NOW averaged 1.15 million viewers during primetime, with a mere 122,000 in the 25 to 54-year-old demographic. That represents a 15 percent decrease in total viewers and a 24 percent decrease in the demographic compared to the previous week. During that time period, MS NOW fell to fourth place among all basic cable networks for primetime viewers, down from second, and it plummeted to 11th in the demo, down from sixth. It also represents a 1 percent decrease in total primetime viewers compared to a year ago. That was the second consecutive week in a row that MS NOW saw a decrease in viewers. Other cable news networks have seen decreases during that same period, such as Fox News, which dropped to third place from second among all cable networks in the demo. However, it retained its top spot among total primetime viewers. CNN also saw a decrease, and averaged 820,000 viewers during primetime and 149,000 viewers in the demographic. That represented a 22 percent drop in total primetime viewers and a 32 percent drop in the demo compared to the previous week. But, compared to MS NOW, CNN’s primetime audience was 44 percent, still higher than the previous year. Last year, CNN’s primetime audience hovered around 500,000, a drastic decrease from the boom it saw during the first Trump Administration. Although MS NOW is changing its lineup and has struggled to draw in younger viewers — despite having a larger audience than CNN — and amid the challenging environment for cable networks, Ms. Kutler told staff that the left-wing outlet is not planning on laying anyone off as part of the shake-up.She also told staffers that “we expect to have more people working at MS NOW by the end of 2026 than we do today.”Last year, MSNBC controversially laid off 125 production staffers. A media reporter at Puck, Dylan Byers, criticized the move as he noted the network was paying its top-rated host, Rachel Maddow, an “absurdly misaligned” salary of $25 million a year to work one day a week — an arrangement which has not changed since the breakup with NBC. Mr. Byers noted that Ms. Maddow’s salary is “roughly equivalent” to the combined salaries of the staffers who were laid off.

Decline Sets In at MS NOW as It Slides to Eleventh Place Among Younger Viewers After Minneapolis ICE Story Dies Down

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