Rachel Maddow's MSNBC Ratings Down Double Digits Since Trump's Win

Rachel Maddow has lost nearly a quarter of her audience since Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the November election.

According to Fox News Digital, MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 2.3 million viewers from the start of 2024 until Election Day but has averaged just 1.8 million since. That's a decline of 22 percent.

In the same time span, the show has also lost 29 percent of its audience in the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults aged 25-54. 

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

Further, Maddow's drop has brought down the entire MSNBC lineup. For years, her show ranked among the top five programs in cable news. During Trump's first term, she was among the top three. Not anymore.

Of late, she has come in around 7th or 8th:

Those are not the results MSNBC had hoped for when it announced that Maddow would return to a five-day-a-week schedule for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. 

Soon, Maddow will turn over the 9 p.m. time slot to former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesdays through Fridays.

Maddow's future at MSNBC is also worth wondering about. The network pays her $25 million a year to work just one day a week. And with parent company NBCUniversal planning to spin MSNBC off (away from NBC News), there's no guarantee the new company will want to invest that type of salary into an anchor who has clearly lost her reach.

And barring another Russia Hoax, of which Maddow was the chief propagandist, there's an argument she has peaked as a cable news lighting rod.

"When she goes back to one night a week for $25 million a year, which is one hell of a deal, the network will continue to shrink to the point where it may appear that they have more employees than actual viewers," Joe Concha added in a statement to FNC.