MSNBC viewers dumping Morning Blow

By Jason Easley



MSNBC viewers have spoken loudly as Morning Joe’s ratings continue to slide. The conservative talker is now the lowest rated morning show on cable news.

One statistic from TVNewser tells the story of Morning Joe’s decline, “Last year, “Morning Joe” was ranked #28 of all cable news shows in the demo. This January it is #47, and in fourth place in the demo behind “Fox & Friends,” “New Day,” and ‘Morning Express.'” The numbers for Joe Scarborough’s show have fallen apart, “On weekday mornings, CNN’s New Day registered its highest ratings ever in January and posted its largest monthly share of the cable news morning audience since 2009. The program also easily beat MSNBC’s Morning Joe, topping Joe for four straight months in total viewers and seven consecutive months among A25-54. Fox and Friends posted its lowest delivery since 2001.”

MSNBC boss Phil Griffin has continued to tout Morning Joe as one of his successes, but the reality is that MSNBC viewers have no interest in the program. The collapse of Morning Joe highlights one of the biggest inconsistencies in MSNBC’s strategy. Griffin claims that he wants to attract younger viewers to the network, but he appears to be completely in love with a program that does poorly with the same viewers age 25-54 that he is courting.

Morning Joe, along with the rest of MSNBC, is dying a slow ratings death. MSNBC lost 23% of their primetime viewers and 39% of their younger viewers in comparison to January 2014. The problems at MSNBC continue to be driven by leaders who have no clue who their potential viewers are, and what they want. The strategy of deploying series of Rachel Maddow clones throughout the schedule has chased viewers away while diluting the distinctiveness of their star program.

Loyal MSNBC viewers have been unhappy with Morning Joe for years, and they have finally walked away from the program. A Pew study on media polarization found that CNN has replaced MSNBC as the preferred network for liberal. Morning Joe will continue to hurt MSNBC until they realize the common sense idea that liberals and progressives don’t want to listen to three of Joe Scarborough’s Republican talking points.