MSNBC has been grabbing headlines in recent weeks for all the wrong reasons as ratings declines, news of a spinoff, and the hosts of Morning Joe meeting with Donald Trump drove a media narrative that the network’s in trouble. But, is the doom and gloom about Morning Joe really warranted? The liberal network would tell you it’s on track for its highest-rated year since 2021 and so far is up in both total viewers and in the key 25-54 age demographic for the 4th quarter – compared to last year. MSNBC has also extended its winning streak over CNN, which used to be the primary home for major news events.
But it is also undeniable that after Trump’s win in the presidential election viewers have been tuning out. After the election, MSNBC was down some 47% in total viewers and CNN was down 33%. In prime time, MSNBC lost 52% of its viewers, while CNN dropped 39% of its prime time audience as viewers tuned out. That’s not particularly surprising; viewers have a reliable tendency to turn off the television when their preferred candidate loses an election. They also have a reliable tendency to turn it back on when the new administration gets underway. We’ll see if that happens this time around.
Much has also been made, in particular, of the declines Morning Joe saw after hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced mid-November that they traveled to Mar-a-Lago to speak to Trump, who later boasted of the meeting and basked in the hosts’ praise of his win.
The numbers before and after the meeting tell a somewhat different story than the media narrative that claimed viewers fled the program. While it’s undeniable the show saw a dip, the ratings have actually remained fairly stable post-election.
Mediaite reported on November 20th that Morning Joe’s 6 a.m. hour that Monday brought in 839,000 total viewers and 113,000 viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic, during which the hosts discussed their meeting that prompted a swift backlash from diehard Trump critics.
The same hour on Tuesday had dropped to 680,000 total viewers with 76,000 in the demo. Tuesday’s program overall saw an 11 percent drop in total viewers and a 12 percent drop in demo viewers from Monday. Compared to the program’s average viewership for 2024, Tuesday’s show was down some 38 percent in total viewers and 37 percent in the demo. The show, which runs for four hours from 6 to 10 am, also saw its third lowest-rated telecasts in the 3rd and 4th hour for the entire year.
Yet Morning Joe has seen less of a drop than other shows on MSNBC. A review of the ratings shows that between the third quarter (pre-election and Trump meeting) and November, Morning Joe lost 14% of its audience. All of MSNBC’s prime time shows were down more, with the 9 p.m. hour hosted by Alex Wagner and Rachel Maddow (on Mondays) down 32%. Chris Hayes was down 15%, Joy Reid 30%, and Lawrence O’Donnell 24%. Nicolle Wallace, who regularly leads the network in the ratings, was also down some 14%.
While the immediate drop was borne out in the data, looking at the full week before the announcement compared to after, Morning Joe viewership held steady. During the week of the announcement, the show averaged 691,000 total viewers, which was only a 1.7% decline from the previous week’s average of 703,000. Both weeks were way down from the show’s previous quarter average of 1.14 million viewers.
During the same time period, CNN’s morning ratings also held steady while dominant Fox News actually saw a small 9% dip as the election became further and further away.
Ultimately, there isn’t much evidence that the trip down to Mar-a-Lago, as furious as it made some viewers, hurt Morning Joe’s ratings. When comparing the show to MSNBC’s prime time, you could maybe even make the argument it gave them a little boost.
