The latest quarterly ratings are in for MSNBC and everything is going great! Wait, no. Not great. What’s the other word? Kind of like “great,” but the opposite? It’s right on the tip of my tongue. I’m sure it’ll come to me. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of the figures highlighted in this New York Times report:
- Rachel Maddow just had her worst quarter ever
- Morning Joe had its second worst quarter ever
- Chris Hayes had his worst quarter ever
- Ronan Farrow’s afternoon show “has been largely a dud”
Bad. That’s the word I was looking for. Everything is going bad.
The report goes on to lay out a bunch of the reasons why the ratings have been slipping of late, which range from “ratings for cable news are down across the board” to “MSNBC has geared itself toward insider-y political coverage and the public is growing apathetic to that” to “no one goes to MSNBC for breaking news and this quarter was heavy on ISIS and Ebola and such.” Combine all that with Fox’s continued dominance and CNN getting all Zuckerfied recently — both for good (Bourdain’s new show is excellent) and for bad (WHERE. IS. THAT. PLANE?) — and it spells a slide toward irrelevance.
In a somewhat related story, although not one that affects just MSNBC, the report also dropped this very telling little factoid on us:
The median age of the MSNBC viewer has also ticked upward. Five years ago it was 58; now it is 61. CNN has edged down a bit, from 62 five years ago to 59. Fox News has aged from 65 to 68.
Confirmed: Only old people watch cable news.
