MSNBC’s audience has tanked since the election.
The liberal network’s viewership is down by 47 percent overall since Nov. 5 and by 52 percent during primetime, the latest Nielsen ratings show.
Morning Joe’s numbers had already fallen by 38 percent after hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski flew to Mar-a-Lago to extend an olive branch to president-elect Donald Trump. Other shows have since clocked all-time lows in the key 25 to 54 demographic.
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On the other hand, Fox News Channel’s primetime viewership has increased by 24 percent since Trump’s win, as conservatives apparently take a victory lap with the right-wing network.
A source at MSNBC told the Daily Beast the network had always expected a post-election dip in viewers. The internal thinking is that viewership will tick back up in January after Trump’s inauguration.
Fox experienced a similar decline after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election before eventually rallying.
And unlike 2016, when the MSNBC’s viewership fell for two straight weeks after the election, this year the numbers had already stabilized after the first week.
Researchers are still trying to determine what’s driving the immediate post-election news-watching trends, and it obviously remains to be seen whether they will last.
But anecdotal evidence suggests some of Vice President Kamala Harris’ supporters are ignoring the news for now after a bruising election cycle, the Washington Post reported this week.
Many liberal voters are feeling defeated and resigned, and instead of obsessing over things they can’t control—like Trump’s chaotic Cabinet picks—they’re just trying to lower their blood pressure, they told the Post.
One MSNBC fan said he switched off the network the day after the election because he couldn’t stand the Democratic infighting that immediately erupted after Trump’s surprisingly swift victory.
It was way too early to nitpick about Harris and her campaign, he told the paper.
Also likely adding to MSNBC’s woes, while audiences across the political divide were interested in Trump’s transition back in 2016, liberal viewers now feel like they’re watching the sequel to a horror film, the Post found.
“I don’t need to hear the day-to-day preparations about what they’re doing to strip away rights for millions of Americans every day,” one liberal voter said.
Of course, for every despondent Harris voter, there’s an elated Trump voter. It stands to reason that they’re cheering on the transition right along with the friendly hosts of Fox & Friends, which was the top morning news show on cable this month.
In the meantime, Christmas season is upon us, and Democrats have plenty of Hot Frosty-style viewing options to distract them.
