The fallout on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” continued to worsen this week after co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski told viewers Monday they had met President-elect Donald Trump in person.
Viewership dropped to a low on Wednesday — just two days after the MSNBC duo said they went to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. to “restart communications” with Trump after years of being highly critical of him, wowing left-leaning audiences.
According to Nielsen data, the MSNBC duo delivered their lowest-rated program since 2021 in the advertiser-coveted 25-to-54 demographic, garnering 41% in the demo and 16% in total viewers since leaders announced their meeting.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have come under fire from both liberals and conservatives this week, who accused them of hypocrisy for routinely denouncing Trump, only to seek out his company after he was elected.
The Daily Show host Jon Stewart mocked the pair for rushing to meet Trump in Florida after the pair parroted Democrats who called him a danger to democracy and compared him to Hitler.
Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential candidate, lashed out at the “Morning Joe” co-hosts on Monday — accusing them of currying favor with Trump to boost their ratings.
The show’s audience left almost immediately after the husband-and-wife team broke the news of their trip on Monday.
Nielsen data also showed that less than an hour after the hosts gave their reasoning for the trip, viewers were changing the channel and leaving MSNBC.
Between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. ET, “Morning Joe” viewership dropped 17% — from 839,000 to 694,000. Viewership dropped 38% in the demo from 113,000 people to 70,000.
Meanwhile in 08:00 to 9:00 am, the audience increased slightly as viewership reached 775,000 people, but ratings fell in 09:00 to 10:00 as the audience shrank to 770,000 viewers.
But the continued decline in ratings during the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekday show also follows a larger trend at the liberal network.
MSNBC has seen its ratings plummet in the days following Trump’s election victory two weeks ago.
The Comcast-owned cable network’s primetime viewership fell 54% while its average daily viewership fell to 736,000 — from 1.1 million last month.
The declines are a sharp turnaround from Election Day, when MSNBC’s election night coverage, anchored by Rachel Maddow, averaged 6 million viewers, beating CNN’s 5.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.
Nielsen said that through Nov. 20, MSNBC lost over half of its primetime audience in the demo while rival CNN lost 35% of its audience by the same amount.
Meanwhile, the conservative Fox News network has grown and now commands 73% of the cable news audience in primetime viewers and 71% in the demo, according to Nielsen.
The “Morning Joe” outburst comes as MSNBC employees are panicking over news that Comcast is planning to spin off the NBCUniversal cable TV network and some of its other channels, in a move fueled by the growth of digital streaming.
Comcast will retain several NBC entertainment, sports and news properties, along with Peacock’s streaming service, its theme parks, and film and television studios.
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