MSNBC president to step down from her position

MSNBC President Rashida Jones has announced her decision to step down from the role.

Mediaite claims a source familiar with the matter told them that the president revealed her decision during a call with network staff. While this seemingly comes out of the blue days ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, reporter Oliver Darcy wrote about the rumor of her planned exit in a December edition of his Status newsletter.

“The MSNBC chief, who has led the progressive network since February 2021, has been mulling a departure after she finishes guiding the news organization through President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration in early 2025, I am told by people familiar with the matter,” Darcy wrote at the time.

Rebecca Kutler will be appointed as interim president until a replacement can be chosen. Kutler left CNN in 2022 and was hired by Jones to run the senior vice president of MSNBC’s content strategy, and has been managing daytime programming as well as podcasts, live events, and streaming.

“Jones has been credited for much of that success at the helm of MSNBC, where in 2021 she earned the distinction of being the first Black executive to lead a major television news network. She has also fielded criticism — there was the Ronna McDaniel mutiny, memorably, and huge paydays for Rachel Maddow and other stars fueled the perception that talent is in charge at the network,” Mediaite reported.

MSNBC has notably been in a ratings free fall after the 2024 election. As BizPac Review previously reported, viewers have been tuning out of the progressive programming in droves since the Republicans cleaned the floor with Democrats in November, leading to Trump’s decisive victory.

“According to Nielsen Media Research figures cited by Fox News, her show ‘The ReidOut’ has hemorrhaged viewers to the tune of losing a staggering 47 percent of its total audience,” BPR noted, adding that other primetime hosts are also feeling the sting with a whopping 53% loss in total viewers, including a 61% in the key demographic.

“Maddow saw her weekly show plummet from 2.4 million viewers in the lead-up to the election to 1.4 million afterward, a stunning 43% plunge. More alarming is the drop among the key demographic where she lost 56% and is now averaging a mere 103,000. Even though Maddow is the only primetime MSNBC host to maintain six-digit viewership with the demo, it’s putting lipstick on the pig,” the report continued.

It is unclear if this marks a significant change in the direction of reporting at MSNBC, or if corporate will pick another left-wing ideologue to command the flailing outlet.

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