Liberal Media Keeps Taking It on the Chin As MSNBC Takes Ratings Face Plant With Young People

Donald Trump’s landslide victory on election night has had liberal media outlets like MSNBC and CNN seemingly on life support ever since. Viewership has tanked, and an impending hefty round of layoffs is also proving that the whole “Donald Trump is evil” narrative is just not working for them anymore. Now, one of those outlets has sunk to its lowest ratings period in two decades. Will that be enough to get the network’s bigwigs’ attention? Maybe, but it could certainly get the attention of advertisers.

Tuesday, November 26, might have seemed like an ordinary Tuesday before Thanksgiving for the rest of America, but not at MSNBC. That day brought them the lowest-rated non-holiday weekday since July 19, 2004, at a mere 38,000 average viewers, among the most sought-after demographic for advertisers, those viewers aged 25-54. This age group is believed to be the most desirable among advertisers because of their spending power and because they are consumers who are not necessarily set in buying habits. In the last 20 years, the only times MSNBC has had a smaller weekday audience were New Year’s Day and July 4.

Some of the record-breaking numbers included “The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle” and “Jose Diaz Belart Reports,” which had their lowest number of total viewers ever, and “Chris Jansing Reports,” “Deadline: White House,” and “Katy Tur Reports” all had their fewest viewers within that demographic. Trump’s imminent return to the White House appears to have all but broken the uber-left-wing network that has lost over half its audience since election day. Some of those casualties include the above-mentioned shows hosted by Stephanie Ruhle and Chris Jansing, but also “Inside with Jen Psaki,” “The Rachel Maddow Show,” and perhaps the viewer decline most enjoyed by Republicans, the “Reid Out” with Joy Reid. 

The viewership nosedive is just part of the internal strife at MSNBC. Because of ratings, Comcast announced recently that they would be spinning off several of NBCUniversal’s cable outlets, including MSNBC, and that it would not be attached to NBC News. In addition, “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski incurred the wrath of many of MSNBC’s faithful viewers when they revealed they had met with Donald Trump, all the while insisting to those viewers that he was a “fascist” and a “threat to democracy.” It was also revealed that MSNBC host Al Sharpton’s nonprofit organization took money from Kamala Harris’s campaign before he interviewed her.

It is this same demographic that Trump did well with. He did better with voters under 30 than any GOP presidential candidate since 2008. For many of those young people, their biggest concern was the economy, so much so that the daily scare tactics from people like Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid did not resonate. But it was not just campaign issues like the economy and immigration but the overt bias of media outlets like MSNBC over those issues, insisting the economy was better than Americans realized, that immigration was not the disaster that it is, not to mention their complete inaccuracy on things like, claiming Trump stated that former Rep. Liz Cheney should be executed by a firing squad also turned off younger voters. 

Media outlets like MSNBC and CNN have been setting themselves up for such a fall for quite a while. They have billed themselves as unbiased news when they have been anything but. Now, that coveted 25-54 demographic may not be buying what MSNBC and its advertisers are selling.