The former Biden press secretary’s show lags far behind cable news competitors
Former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki is struggling two months into her primetime role at MSNBC, with her show having lost 44 percent of the audience that tuned in for host Rachel Maddow and now trailing its Fox News counterpart by a large margin.
Psaki’s show, The Briefing, averaged 1.1 million total viewers from its May 6 debut through July 3—down 44 percent from the 1.8 million that Maddow and temporary host Alex Wagner drew in the 9 p.m. slot earlier this year, Fox News reported. Meanwhile, Fox News’s Hannity—airing in the same 9 p.m. slot—averaged 2.9 million viewers.
The former press secretary’s lackluster performance adds to MSNBC’s financial woes, as the network has already faced plummeting ratings and viewership for months amid mounting scrutiny over its left-wing reporting bias. MSNBC’s parent company, Comcast, announced in November that it was cutting ties with the failing network. Psaki, for her part, has faced backlash over her role in covering up former president Joe Biden’s mental decline while she served as White House press secretary from January 2021 until May 2022.
Psaki, who took over Maddow’s primetime time slot on Tuesdays through Fridays, has posted especially weak numbers in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic. Psaki’s show has averaged only 90,000 viewers in that group—well behind Hannity, which drew 344,000, and The Source with Kaitlan Collins, which averaged 108,000.
The Briefing is beating CNN’s The Source, which has averaged only 543,000 total viewers since May, according to Fox.