Things appear to be going from bad to worse over at MSNBC. While the network’s ratings were struggling long before Donald Trump won the election, they have further plummeted since.
Not immune from the decline? Morning Joe, which has seen even more viewers abandon ship after hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced they traveled to Mar-a-Lago last weekend to meet with the president-elect.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show, to discuss the fallout from Scarborough and Brzezinski’s meet-up and what the future holds for MSNBC.
Morning Joe Ratings
Earlier this month, Nielsen Media Research data reported by Fox News showed just how dire things have gotten in the viewership department for MSNBC. In October, the cable network averaged 1.1 million viewers a day. In the three days after the November 5 election, the daily average shrank 31 percent to 736,000. For comparison, Fox News saw its ratings jump 61 percent in the same period.
While Nielsen found that the MSNBC primetime lineup – between 8pm and 11pm – was hit hardest, the daytime programming, including Morning Joe, was not immune. “They were already circling the bowl,” Megyn noted, but the audience left “in even greater numbers” following Scarborough and Brzezinski’s revelation about their visit to Palm Beach.
“They had gone to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee… And they didn’t just bend the knee, they got down on their snake bellies and they slithered over and licked the boot,” Megyn explained. “That is really what happened, and then they come back out on the air on Monday and say, ‘We spoke truth to power. Why wouldn’t we speak to the rapist, racist, bigoted, sexist, misogynist Hitler? That’s just what we do as journalists.'”
Scarborough has since claimed that all the criticism the pair has been getting on social media is not reflective of the love and support they are getting from the audience. But the numbers would suggest otherwise.
On Tuesday, Megyn reported Morning Joe had shaved tens of thousands “off their already terrible numbers.” In the key demo of 25 to 54 year olds, they were down to 78,000 viewers. “That is just 25,000 or so above what we in the business call ‘slashees,'” she explained. “If you get 50,000 or under, they call them ‘slashees’ because they don’t give you the number but rather a slash.”
Scarborough and Brzezinski are now in that territory themselves. “Hello, Joe and Mika, you are back to slash land,” Megyn said. “They went and met with President Trump and [Scarborough said] people loved it. All 78,000 out of the audience that should be 600,000… really loved it. Don’t believe your lying eyes.”
The Future of MSNBC
Given that Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is planning to spin off MSNBC and its other cable networks into a separate company, Klavan said Scarborough and Brzezinski may soon have a lot more to worry about. “Comcast is ready to toss the entire station out the window,” he noted.
The rumor mill has been turning for months about the corporate breakup, and Megyn does not believe it is a coincidence that Comcast is now confirming the news. “I do think it is very interesting that Comcast chose now to announce it is going to spin off its disgusting cable channel,” she said. “And it is not because NBC News is doing so well and they just want to separate the struggling MS from NBC. NBC is also doing very poorly.”
Since all of NBC is “in a lot of trouble,” Megyn believes there is something more to it. “So why spin off MSNBC? It is because it is, like, the disgusting evil troll that came to live with you and wouldn’t leave,” she surmised. “They are looking at it like, ‘Oh my god, we don’t want our vaunted Today Show anchors to have to associate with those troll ogres over there, who are on their bellies licking the boot right now’… No wonder they want to spin this thing off.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Klavan by tuning in to episode 950 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.