MSNBC’s president confirmed in a memo to staff Tuesday she is stepping down from her role on Jan. 19, coming a day before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a memo.
Rashida Jones, in a memo to staff on Tuesday, said that she is leaving to “pursue new opportunities.” She’ll be replaced on an interim basis by Rebecca Kutler, a former executive with CNN who had joined MSNBC in 2022.
“I came to this decision over the holidays while reflecting on our remarkable journey and the many successes we’ve achieved together as a team. This has been the most rewarding chapter of my professional career and I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished, which has been made possible only by you,” Jones said in a memo to staff, according to NBC News.
Jones took charge of MSNBC in February 2021, coming about a month after President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“Rashida has 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. MSNBC is well-positioned for the future,” NBC executive Mark Lazarus said in a memo to staff, NBC reported.
MSNBC’s viewership has dropped by about 57 percent since Trump’s election win. The network has said that the post-election audience for cable networks closely associated with a losing candidate typically sinks, and that there are already signs that things are picking up again.
Whether it will to the extent that it happened for MSNBC in 2017 is an open question, particularly with more people eliminating their cable service.
On Monday, MSNBC confirmed that its most popular host, Rachel Maddow, will return to the network to host her program five nights per week. Since around 2022, Maddow has only hosted the program about one time per week.
The network said Monday that Maddow will lead its coverage of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 and, starting that night, begin airing her prime-time show five nights a week at 9 p.m. ET. Maddow’s audience last week was 1.6 million, up around 20 percent compared to its averages in November and December average, MSNBC reported.
In a news release, rival cable news network Fox News, citing Nielsen ratings, said that it saw the “highest share of the cable news audience in nearly a decade as it marks nine consecutive years as the highest-rated cable network in all of television.”
The channel, it said, held 56 percent of cable news audience in primetime, and it held 53 percent in total day viewership across 2024. Meanwhile, the channel saw increases in each demographic category, notably in the 18–49 and 25–54 demographics that advertisers tend to covet.
According to Nielsen ratings cited in a news release issued by Fox News corporate’s office, MSNBC saw “historic declines” in 2024, shedding 65 percent of its 25–54 demographic by the end of the year. CNN also lost about half of its audience in 2024 in the 25–54 demographic, the release noted.
In December, the ratings show that MSNBC saw 35,000 viewers in the 25–54 demographic during its total day and 45,000 in the 25–54 demographic during primetime, marking lows not seen since 1997, the release said.
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