Defiant Rachel Maddow Returns to One-Day-a-Week Work Schedule, Despite $25 Million Salary, MSNBC Layoffs

With President Trump’s first 100 days in office coming to an end, MSNBC’s biggest star, Rachel Maddow, will be returning to her schedule of hosting a show only one day a week. The liberal news personality had agreed to anchor five days a week, but only for the first 100 days. Ms. Maddow’s return to a lighter schedule is putting an end to any speculation that she’ll keep up her five-day schedule as MSNBC endures ugly layoffs, ratings woes, and a difficult spin-off from NBCUniversal. Ms. Maddow’s eponymous show, which airs at 9 p.m., has long been the liberal network’s highest-rated program. In 2022, though, Ms. Maddow scaled back her show-hosting duties to just one day a week. Despite the drastically shortened work week, she reportedly received a salary of $30 million a year for the once-a-week schedule. In November, the Ankler reported that her pay had been cut to $25 million because the network was experiencing a “difficult time.” Then, in January, it was announced that she would return to working five days a week for the duration of Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office. Ms. Maddow insisted that her five-day-a-week gig was only temporary and that the 100-day mark for Mr. Trump was the “hard stop” that would lead to resuming her one-day-a-week schedule. To fill the remainder of the four days, MSNBC tapped a former Biden White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, to anchor the 9 p.m. hour Tuesday to Friday, starting May 6. The move to bring Ms. Maddow back to five days a week was seen as an attempt by network executives to help rescue the network from its ratings decline. MSNBC has struggled to compete with Fox News for years, except for a brief moment in the immediate aftermath of the departure of Tucker Carlson when the liberal network’s 8 p.m. slot drew more viewers than Fox. After the 2024 election, MSNBC saw its primetime ratings fall 57 percent. With the decision to bring Ms. Maddow back for five days a week, the network has seen a resurgence of viewers. During the week of April 14, MSNBC was the only network to see an increase in the coveted 25- to 54-year-old viewer demo in the primetime hours.Ms. Maddow’s show is also the only cable show not produced by Fox News to make it onto the list of top 15 cable shows during the first three months of 2025. Despite signs that her return to her old schedule has helped the network’s ratings, it seems the arrangement will indeed come to an end as originally planned. Yet MSNBC, which is in the process of being separated from NBCUniversal along with most of Comcast’s cable assets, will be part of a new cable company, tentatively called SpinCo, with new leadership. The new management could be forced to make a decision about whether Ms. Maddow and her large salary are worth it for one day of work. The founder of the newsletter, Breaker Media, Lachlan Cartwright, reports in Politico that there is “deep uncertainty” about which journalists and anchors will be kept around after the new company launches. Ms. Maddow and MSNBC have already faced criticism over what has been perceived as a bloated salary. Puck’s Dylan Byers called it “absurdly misaligned” and noted that the network announced 125 production staffers were laid off and offered the chance to apply for other positions, and he said the amount of her salary is “roughly equivalent to the combined salary of about—go figure—125 production staffers.”“Of course, NBCUniversal decided long ago that the Maddow imprimatur was worth all that and then some (recall, Maddow’s salary used to be $30 million a year, and she still owns most of her I.P.). But that now seems like the arithmetic of a bygone era,” Mr. Byers wrote. “In those days, NBCU suits largely convinced themselves that Maddow was MSNBC and the network would lose viewership and distribution agreement leverage without her. These days, of course, MSNBC is being pushed off to sea with other declining cable assets. It isn’t their problem anymore.”Beside the financial constraints on the network, there is also the matter of Ms. Maddow using her perch to criticize her bosses on air. In March 2024, she joined several anchors, such as Nicolle Wallace and Ms. Psaki, in criticizing the “inexplicable” decision to hire a former chairwoman of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, as a paid contributor for NBC News.Less than a week after Ms. McDaniel’s hiring sparked the revolt from the left-wing staff, she was out of a job, and the chairman of the NBC Universal News Group, Cesar Conde, issued an apology to the staff as he said the hiring “undermines” the goal of a having a “cohesive and aligned” newsroom. In February, Ms. Maddow was widely mocked after issuing a public rebuke to MSNBC for firing host Joy Reid, who is Black.“I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, and personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call, and I understand that, but that’s what I think,” Ms. Maddow said.She also said it was “unnerving” that the network fired an additional “two non-white hosts.”“And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them,” Ms. Maddow said. “That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”She was promptly mocked by users who suggested there was irony in the white host — with her large salary — bemoaning the firing of hosts of color on the network’s airwaves.Mr. Byers noted anonymous executives at NBC have suggested that Ms. Maddow might make guest appearances on other shows throughout the week to boost ratings. However, MSNBC did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment on whether there were any plans for her to make such appearances.

Defiant Rachel Maddow Returns to One-Day-a-Week Work Schedule, Despite $25 Million Salary, MSNBC Layoffs

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