Morning Joe Is Destroying MSNBC As Young Viewers Refuse To Watch Joe Scarborough

MSNBC loves Morning Joe, but the show has lost so many young viewers that Joe Scarborough now has lower ratings than CNN’s Headline News.

Dylan Byers of Politico reported:

As of today, MSNBC, a network already beset by catastrophically low ratings, has spent eleven months with fewer daytime demo viewers than HLN, the CNN sister-network that is home to personalities like Nancy Grace and Dr. Drew.

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Adding insult to injury: HLN’s ‘Morning Express with Robin Meade’ has now bested MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ in the all-important 25-to-54 demo for a full year, with 116,000 in the demo vs. Morning Joe’s 78,000 in April. That’s an even wider gap than the daytime averages of 113,000 demo viewers in daytime vs. MSNBC’s 82,000. (‘Morning Joe’ has more total viewers than both HLN and CNN’s morning programs).

Morning Joe may have more total viewers, but those viewers are older and the exact opposite of what MSNBC was supposedly building with their “Lean Forward” strategy. When young news viewers (age 25-54) would rather Headline News than MSNBC, there is a huge problem.

The management at MSNBC remains clueless to the real reason their viewers have abandoned the network. Instead of giving liberal and progressive viewers the kinds of programming that they want, Phil Griffin and company have decided to that their best plan for the future is to fire or reassign their liberal hosts, while sticking with Morning Joe.

There is a huge and underserved liberal/progressive news audience out there. This audience doesn’t want to wake up to Joe Scarborough and company delivering three hours of Beltway conventional wisdom and Republican talking points. NBC News itself loves Joe Scarborough. Morning Joe was in the running to replace David Gregory on Meet The Press, and he has been promoted to host in waiting if and when Chuck Todd flames out on Sunday mornings.

The young viewers that MSNBC is so desperately coveting hate, Joe Scarborough. Liberals and progressives of all ages have for years viewed Scarborough’s morning show as a hypocritical insult from a network that claims to be on their side.

Morning Joe will never be the answer to MSNBC’s ratings woes.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association