Head Of MSNBC Out As Ratings Plunge After Trump’s Election

As MSNBC ‘s ratings have tanked after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in November, the woman who ran the hard-Left network throughout almost all of the Biden administration has resigned.

Rashida Jones rose through the company from her position supervising daytime and weekend news programming. She oversaw the hiring of former White House Press secretary Jen Psaki to host her own show, replaced Rachel Maddow four days a week with Alex Wagner, and extended “Morning Joe” to four hours.

“After four incredible years at the helm of MSNBC and 11 years at NBCU, I have made the decision to pursue new opportunities,” Jones wrote in a memo to staffers.

“MSNBC’s ratings have steadily trickled up since a post-election exodus saw star Rachel Maddow plunge to her lowest ratings in nearly 10 years, netting just 86,000 in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic two weeks after Trump’s win,” The Daily Beast noted. “The network also saw its primetime ratings in November decline by 22 percent from October, though it was still up over CNN.” On December 31, Deadline reported, “In the past month, MSNBC averaged 660,000 primetime viewers, compared to almost 1.3 million in December 2023, as primary season was heating up.”

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Jones will be replaced on an interim basis by Rebecca Kutler, whom Jones hired from CNN in 2022, serving as senior vice president of content strategy. Comcast, which owns MSNBC, recently announced that the network, although keeping its name, would become part of a new entity run by the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, Mark Lazarus. Lazarus lauded Jones, saying she had “expertly navigated MSNBC through a years-long, unrelenting and unprecedented news cycle, all while driving the network to record viewership and making investments in nonlinear businesses.”

In a move to shore up sagging ratings, Rachel Maddow is expected to return to five days a week until April 30, when she will return to her once-a-week schedule.

Kutler was one of the driving forces creating CNN+, the news service that Warner Bros. Discovery shut down soon after its inception.