Embarrassment for MSNBC as Biden Insider Jen Psaki’s New Prime Time Show Falls to Fourth Place in Channel’s Struggling Line-Up

Biden insider Jen Psaki’s much-heralded new MSNBC show, “The Briefing,” is facing another embarrassment, with new ratings data showing her audience continuing to shrink, even as the Biden brand is increasingly tarnished. The former Biden White House press secretary’s Tuesday through Friday, 9 p.m. show — named to remind viewers of her role in the Biden administration — kicked off to a rocky start as she faced criticism for insisting she never saw evidence of the 46th president’s decline. Her show made its debut with 1.2 million viewers, which over the rest of the week fell to just more than 1 million.In a worrying sign for the new prime time host, the start of her second week is showing signs that her audience is dwindling even further. On Tuesday, her audience failed to cross 1 million, as 962,000 viewers tuned in, putting her show in fourth place for the network behind Nicolle Wallace’s 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. shows. One bright spot for Ms. Psaki is that her audience in the coveted 25- to 54-year-old demo — which cratered by 57 percent last week to 66,000 — ticked up to 79,000. About 90 percent of Ms. Psaki’s audience is 55 or older.The dismal week two for the new program comes amid fresh allegations that Ms. Psaki lied — in a recent interview to promote “The Briefing” — about President Biden’s physical and mental decline. A forthcoming book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson says that White House aides were concerned about his health as early as 2022, while she was still in the administration — but she appears to be intent on avoiding the topic. On Thursday evening, she opened her show with a monologue criticizing the Trump White House for not releasing a transcript of the 47th president’s public remarks since March 13. She did not mention the multiple times the Biden White House released transcripts that were edited to clear up Mr. Biden’s verbal stumbles or the controversial decision to alter his comment to make it appear he did not call President Trump’s supporters “garbage” ahead of the 2024 election, which reportedly drew a rebuke from the official White House stenographers. According to Messrs. Thompson and Tapper’s book, the White House was also editing videos of Mr. Biden to make him look more physically capable and articulate. MSNBC executives are believed to have high expectations for Ms. Psaki after they tapped her to fill the vacancy left when the network’s top-rated host, Rachel Maddow, returned to her Monday-only schedule.Ms. Maddow is believed to earn $25 million a year to work one day a week. However, she had agreed to return to a more normal five-day-a-week schedule to cover the first 100 days of Mr. Trump’s administration. The decision was seen as an effort to help rescue the network’s ratings, which plunged 57 percent after the 2024 election.The strategy seems to have helped the network’s ratings. Ms. Maddow’s show was the only cable show not produced by Fox News to make it onto a list of the top 15 cable shows in the first three months of 2025. During her last full week, Ms. Maddow saw days when her audience topped 2 million.Since returning to her Monday-only schedule, Ms. Maddow remains a major draw for viewers. On May 12, her show drew in 1.7 million viewers, making it reasonably competitive with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, whose show had 2.2 million viewers during the same hourWhile executives at MSNBC likely did not expect Ms. Psaki to draw the same audience as Ms. Maddow, they probably had higher expectations for the host of the 9 p.m. hour.The previous Tuesday through Friday host, Alex Wagner, who is biracial, would frequently draw in closer to 1.5 million viewers ahead of the election. However, she has since been relegated to a “correspondent” position.Earlier this year, MSNBC fired three “non-white” hosts, including a liberal firebrand, Joy Reid, which led to a rebuke from Ms. Maddow, who 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.”The popular host was quickly mocked for expressing her disappointment with the move as the network — like many cable TV networks — is facing financial struggles while she retained her one-day-a-week job and her enormous salary. Some entertainment reporters and industry insiders have criticized her pay package. Puck’s Dylan Byers called it “absurdly misaligned” as he noted the network laid off 125 production staffers — though it did say they could apply for other positions — whose salaries combined roughly equate to Ms. Maddow’s.Meanwhile, an unnamed network executive told the Breaker’s Lachlan Cartwright that MSNBC’s deal with Ms. Maddow is “criminal,” suggesting that an even more crucial time for the host to work five days a week would have been after Mr. Trump’s first 100 days. As MSNBC is spun off from NBCUniversal into a new company, Versant, with new leadership, it will lose some of its financial cushion, which could force executives to scrutinize more closely its arrangements with top personalities. For Ms. Psaki, the future of her audience will likely be closely monitored to see if the dip is temporary as viewers adjust to the new show, or if it is a rejection of the new host. While Ms. Wagner drew in a larger audience, her audience crumbled after the election to around half a million, and she was notably not offered the 9 p.m. time slot again. If Ms. Psaki’s audience continues to shrink, executives at Versant may explore ways to try to force their top-rated host to work five days a week permanently. Already, it is believed that attorneys are examining her contract as executives consider which personalities they want to keep once the split from NBCUniversal is complete. MSNBC did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Embarrassment for MSNBC as Biden Insider Jen Psaki’s New Prime Time Show Falls to Fourth Place in Channel’s Struggling Line-Up

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