Instant Thoughts on Rachel Maddow Moving To A Weekly Format

Rachel Maddow will scale back her primetime program to one day a week, she announced tonight.

Beginning in May, Maddow will host MSNBC's 9 pm hour only on Mondays. She explained:

“It’s nice to be back,” Maddow says. “I’ve been away from the show for a few weeks. I took a hiatus to give myself a little reset and also to work on some other MSNBC projects that I’ve got cooking.”

“So here’s the plan, I’m back, I’m gonna be here all this month Monday through Thursday night,” she said. “I will be here this month, Monday through Thursday nights, and then starting next month, starting in may, I’m gonna be here weekly. I’m gonna be here on Monday nights, again, to give myself just more time to work on some of the other stuff that I’ve got cooking for MSNBC and NBC.”

Maddow re-signed with MSNBC last year for a reported $30 million a year. Her new contract, as we explained, allowed her to move from daily to weekly this spring.

I have more respect for Maddow than I do the other wokes. Maddow is honest about her biases, unlike Don Lemon. She's not a complete, privileged failure like Bomani Jones is. And she's at least sane, we think. Meaning, she's not Keith Olbermann.

Recently, I discussed Maddow's value in a column. In sum,

Maddow may have lied about Trump and Russia for years, but she’s still a superstar. Maddow is the single, most valuable talent in cable news.

How is that possible? Well, a network isn’t interested in honest reporting, strictly speaking. Networks are interested in viewership numbers. In order to determine a host’s worth, network managers follow a simple formula: take the base average — the number of viewers who tune in at a specific time slot, no matter the host — then measure whether he or she raises, drops or maintains that average.

In 2021, Maddow averaged a million more viewers than the rest of the MSNBC primetime lineup. That’s leverage.

MSNBC is nothing without Rachel Maddow. Her fill-in hosts tanked her program, which ranked 4th in cable news in 2021 with 2.6 million viewers, down to 11th overall, with a current average of 1.8 million viewers.

With Maddow moving to one day a week and perhaps out of weekdays at some point, MSNBC will be a non-factor in primetime.

Without Maddow, MSNBC is CNN: angry with no one to complain to.