NYT Wonders: Has MSNBC’s Audience Fled to Fox?

Does the math work? Would 53 percent of MSNBC’s audience constitute 21 percent of Fox’s audience? By golly …

That probably isn’t what’s happening here, but what’s happening is notable enough. The New York Times suggests a direct shift in its headline and sub-head:

Viewers Flee MSNBC, and Flock to Fox News, in Wake of Election

Prime-time viewership at MSNBC has fallen 53 percent from October, and jumped 21 percent on Fox News.

“The Rachel Maddow Show,” the liberal network’s highest-rated program, drew 1.3 million viewers on Monday, about a million shy of her October average, according to Nielsen. In a crucial ratings metric — viewers under the age of 54 — it was the least-watched edition of the show since April 2022.

That performance mirrors much of what has been happening at MSNBC in the week since Mr. Trump’s election win. MSNBC has averaged 550,000 viewers since Election Day, a 39 percent decline compared with the network’s average in October. In prime time, MSNBC’s audience has declined 53 percent, according to the Nielsen data.

The opposite has happened at Fox News, MSNBC’s conservative rival. Fox’s audience in prime time has grown 21 percent since last Wednesday, with an average of 3.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Its total day audience has jumped 38 percent.

John wrote about MSNBC’s woes on Tuesday, but that had been covered mainly by entertainment-focused publications like The Wrap and Hollywood Reporter. Having the NYT take notice elevates the crisis at Progressive Central to a notable catastrophe for the Left. Either that, or the Gray Lady wants to rally MSNBC’s fleeing audience to return to avoid embarrassment. One has to wonder whether the NYT is suffering the same traffic issues, in fact. 

Audience drops wouldn’t be abnormal for partisan media outlets in the wake of a loss, although the amount of falloff seems unusual. MSNBC proudly brands itself as progressive and supported Democrats and the Left in the election. Their audience maintains a high engagement level with politics, so any disappointing result will create a demoralization that prompts disconnects for a period of time. As the NYT notes, this happens in every political cycle, and usually the audiences return when new political fights emerge. 

What does seem unusual are the scale of the falloff, as I mention, but also the fact that Fox’s audience has increased even on top of their already-dominant ratings levels. Even in a win like this, it’s surprising that there were enough people to boost their ratings by 21% over normal levels. One does have to wonder whether at least some of that comes from the fleeing MSNBC audience. If so, the Fox bump may not last long, since the MSNBC audience won’t get too much fan service from Fox’s commentators — although Fox is generally better at putting heterodox thinkers on air than MSNBC or practically any of the alphabet networks do. 

However, this audience collapse comes at a bad time for MSNBC parent Comcast. They floated a spin-off or sale of some of its cable brands, MSNBC among them, and analysts were already skeptical. In fact, some analysts wonder whether this was more of an alarm than a strategy:

“Splitting off these declining assets may be alluring, but we think there are complexities and dis-synergies in doing so,” he wrote. “Perhaps a private equity owner would find them attractive, but we think a standalone public stock may not perform well.”

Media analyst Rich Greenfield of LightShed Ventures was even more blunt, noting the extreme complexity of such a potential deal.

“We suspect this is much ado about nothing,” he wrote in a note to clients. “When you see a dismal future, with no path to growth, you sound the alarm and explore strategic alternatives.”

Dismal future? No path to growth? That’s what it looks like at the moment for MSNBC, at least at the moment. If Comcast thinks so as well, then we may see some significant changes coming — something a bit more robust than its on-air talent hunkering down on Blue Sky.