Maddow’s Back! The Resistance Is Rising! So Why Is Msnbc’s Future Uncertain?

Inside 30 Rock — the iconic skyscraper synonymous with a satirical TV sitcom — a select group of prominent Comcast executives are busy drawing up lists. In a process that internally has been likened to the Hunger Games, the top brass, including NBC’s Cesar Conde and Rebecca Blumenstein and MSNBC’s Rebecca Kutler, are dividing anchors, hosts and correspondents into a few buckets as MSNBC prepares to spin off from its mothership, NBC News. There are those NBC News wants and MSNBC doesn’t. The ones MSNBC is keen to nab that NBC is happy to see go. And the lucky few whom both networks would love to keep, granting those journalists the luxury of deciding between the two. Sunday Today Show anchor and Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist is one of the rare exceptions that will be allowed to appear on both channels. But layoffs await a sizable number of those neither network wants.

“It’s a clusterfuck,” a person familiar with the negotiations told me.

This is, by many accounts, a time of soul searching for MSNBC. After the election, the liberal network’s primetime ratings cratered, falling by 57 percent in the key 25-to-54 demo after Election Day. But in recent months, MSNBC’s faithful have tuned back in, and it regularly draws more viewers than its main rival, CNN. Rachel Maddow, the star of the network and its highest-rated host, is, at least for now, back on air five nights a week. And a second Donald Trump presidency seems to have provided a new sense of purpose to a network beloved by the anti-Trump resistance.

Still, the looming split from NBC has stirred deep uncertainty within MSNBC — not just about who stays and who goes, but about what kind of network it wants to be and whether it can survive on its own. Or do they want to hire nonpartisan journalists focused on scoops and beating out their soon-to-be rivals at NBC News? How they square that and resolve those competing interests will define the network’s future.

To the surprise of staffers Comcast announced late last year that it was, largely, getting out of the cable TV business. Eleven channels will depart the NBC mothership later this year, including CNBC, USA, E!, Syfy and, of course, MSNBC. For lack of a better name, Comcast has so far dubbed the new entity “SpinCo,” and tasked company veteran Mark Lazarus with running it and ensuring the new entity does not end up in palliative care. He has departed his palatial 51st floor office (where Comcast’s best and brightest enjoy sweeping views of Manhattan) for an office on the much more modest 6th floor that was previously empty office space but where all of SpinCo will be located until later this year.

Announced two weeks before the election, SpinCo turned out to be well timed. The decision to split off the cable networks came from the company’s longtime CEO (and founder’s son) Brian Roberts. The primary driver was the continued decline of cable TV (when was the last time you watched Oxygen?) and its drag on Comcast’s share price. But the move comes with possible political upside too: Comcast is consciously uncoupling an asset that reliably provokes the president’s hatred. Just last week, Trump unleashed on Roberts on Truth Social, labeling MSNBC “fake news.” “Comcast, which also has the ailing network known as NBC, is trying to stay away from lawsuits by disassociating NBC from MSNBC, but it won’t work. Comcast, the owner of both, and its Chairman, Brian Roberts, are a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting!!!,” Trump posted.

Extricating MSNBC and building up SpinCo mean big changes, some of which are only visible behind the scenes, and some of which will drastically alter what viewers see at home. Election expert Steve Kornacki is taking his “Kornacki cam” to NBC, or “RemainCo” as it is widely known within 30 Rock. (The same day Kornacki's new deal became public it was also announced that Antonia Hylton — a current NBC News correspondent — would join MSNBC as a co-host and correspondent.) Longtime anchor Jose Diaz-Balart is due to depart MSNBC for NBC as MSNBC shutters its operation in Miami. The 11th Hour host and NBC News senior business analyst Stephanie Ruhle, who also pops up on the Today Show, will stick with MSNBC but may have to lose her second title, which she adores. Another familiar face from the Today Show NBC News Political and National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff, who is well liked by Kutler, is expected to land at MSNBC.

One of the biggest shocks of the spinoff is that MSNBC will lose the newsgathering talent of NBC. While most people at home will just notice the new hosts, behind the scenes MSNBC is creating an entire newsroom from scratch. Until now, MSNBC directly employed anchors and producers but turned to NBC News when they needed Richard Engel in Ukraine or Vaughn Hillard at the White House or Keir Simmons outside Buckingham Palace. Now they’ll have to build up their own roster of correspondents and reporters, with about 100 jobs to fill. Who they hire and the mission they set them on will go a long way towards determining the future of the network.

Over the past two months, I’ve spoken with more than three dozen MSNBC staffers, top talent and executives, as well as industry insiders familiar with the network, trying to understand how MSNBC plans to navigate its test of relevance and longevity. While executives toast what they hope is a rebirth, anxious employees have been asking me if I know whether they’ll still have jobs this summer and, if so, where they’ll be working once they decamp from 30 Rock. Many were granted anonymity to speak candidly without jeopardizing their careers.

On the air, MSNBC continues to give viewers the blow-by-blow of Trump and the fate of democracy. Behind the scenes, staffers operate with limited information about their fates and the editorial direction of the new leadership. A number of people there likened it to being asked to fly a plane as it's being built. So far, Kutler, who took over as head of MSNBC in February, has impressed the executive producers of the network’s shows in their regular Wednesday morning meeting by being more visible and more hands on than her predecessor, Rashida Jones.

She’s also slowly, subtly shifting the tone of those shows. In those meetings executive producers have been told by the new boss to incorporate more hopeful news to give viewers a break from the bleakness. They have been instructed to incorporate guests with competing viewpoints and to be more measured in their use of breaking news banners so that not every Trump outrage seems like a five-alarm fire. Kutler has also told them she wants more stylistic gloss; she plans to bring back hair and makeup for all guests and wants to see more of the anchors’ faces and less b-roll.

Despite these adjustments, though, there’s still plenty of sky-on-fire rhetoric from the network during the early days of Trump 2.0, the type of coverage its diehard liberal viewership craves.

The stakes are high. MSNBC needs to stay relevant as they lose the reporting heft of NBC News. As CNN has moved on from Trump 1.0 resistance heroes Don Lemon and Jim Acosta and The Washington Post’s owner now seems far less concerned about democracy’s dark fate as he kowtows to Trump, MSNBC is the primary major resistance outlet left standing as Trump’s second term creates an unrelenting news cycle. If Lazarus and Kutler can figure it out, they can safeguard the future of MSNBC. If they screw it up, they risk alienating loyal viewers and tanking the network.

Mark Lazarus is a company man, a “golf bro,” as someone who knows him professionally told me. His career began in sports media (after working on the sets of soap operas Ryan’s Hope and All My Children) at Turner Sports, where he played a major role in recruiting Charles Barkley for TNT’s Inside the NBA before expanding to oversee all the company’s entertainment properties, from Turner Classic Movies to Adult Swim. After joining NBC in 2011, where he became head of sports, he climbed the corporate ladder over the next 14 years to become chairman of NBCU’s media group, controlling the company’s TV and streaming portfolio. Last year he took over as SpinCo’s CEO-to-be, in charge of executing the separation until that day comes.

Lazarus is more conservative than some of his left-leaning colleagues. “He could have a MAGA hat at home and we wouldn’t know,” one MSNBC staffer told me. In meetings, he’s suggested that Republicans feel they don’t get a fair shake on the network. But though he might not be aligned with their politics, he’s aligned with MSNBC talent on the nuts and bolts of making good TV — and understands the network can’t risk alienating its core audience.

In February, Lazarus appointed Kutler to lead MSNBC. Kutler is a protégé of ex-CNN boss Jeff Zucker and joined MSNBC in 2022 as senior vice president of content strategy. “Fantastic leader,” one rival TV exec told me. “Knows how to move fast and is unafraid to break things,” said a former colleague. She has quickly made her mark, helping to elevate some of MSNBC's most progressive voices such as former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders Townsend, another former political spinner.

But there seems to be a limit to the type of politicking on air that Kutler and Lazarus will stand behind. That became clear in February when Joy Reid was pushed out. Comcast execs had long rolled their eyes at some of her more hyperbolic on-air rants. Her social media also gave the Standards Department heartburn. Both NBC News boss Cesar Conde and Jones punted on what to do. When they did finally decide on a solution last year it was to give her a one-year extension and a salary cut in the hopes she would quit. It was severance in drag.

After she didn’t quit, she became Kutler’s problem. And days after she took the top job in February, Kutler — with Lazarus’ blessing — swung the axe. Reid’s departure grabbed the headlines, but she wasn’t alone. Alex Wagner lost her 9 p.m. show (though she remains with MSNBC), and the behind-the-scenes staff were DOGE'd and told to reapply for other jobs. The layoffs leaked to the media before many affected staff were officially notified. In one HR blunder, a list of impacted staffers’ names was left sitting on the printer at 30 Rock and discovered by producers before bosses had delivered the news. Maddow was so incensed she addressed it on air, calling the decision to fire Reid a “bad mistake” and implying racism played a role in Reid’s firing. (MSNBC execs told me Maddow is entitled to her own view, and they don’t seek to suppress their employees' opinions.)

“For a long time, talent had a lot of power here and now they don’t,” one MSNBC staffer told me about the fallout from ReidGate. The network is home to huge personalities (and with that huge egos) who have enjoyed great cachet over the years, but new management have taken a machine-gun-first-and-apologize-later tactic. A handful of top names still hold great sway — Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Maddow and Nicole Wallace — but the list of on-air talent with carte blanche has shrunk.

That sense of change isn’t limited to the hosts; it’s reshaping the way the business operates too. Liberated from the layers of Comcast oversight, Lazarus and Kutler hope that what is now viewed as a set of declining assets can be transformed into a growing startup that brings in money beyond simply cable fees. MSNBC has always been a cash cow. They now have the opportunity to use those rivers of gold as they please instead of Comcast dictating it. Kutler has been busy pushing her people to have MSNBC everywhere. On YouTube. TikTok. There was even a ComicCon-type live event in Brooklyn last year called “MSNBC Live” where 4,000 of the network's “super fans” paid $119 each to attend. And plans are now underway for another one.

MSNBC is gearing up to create a streaming option, though it’s unclear whether it will be a bespoke product or MSNBC itself streaming for a subscription fee. “We have the ability to transcend this linear cable box,” Kutler told me. “We have the ability to build things.” She is particularly aware of the pitfalls of such a streamer after she led programming for the failed CNN+, though few blame her for its troubles since she was tasked with carrying out an idea that was half-baked at best.

Execs, like the golf-loving Lazarus, also point to the success of the Golf Channel, which has been expanded into Golf Now, an online booking service for tee times, and a streaming component, Golf Pass. “We aren’t in the golf media business, we are in the golf business,” he told me.

But first, he has to keep the current MSNBC staff happy. They had two major concerns when SpinCo was first announced: The location and the name. The “horror stories” of catching a company bus from Manhattan to Englewood Cliffs in New Jersey (where CNBC is headquartered) were too much for some. SpinCo undertook a commuting study. Of the 600-700 people who work out of 30 Rock, a third live in Brooklyn, 8 percent in Westchester and Connecticut, a big chunk in Manhattan, a smaller number in Queens, and one who lives on Staten Island.

Much to everyone’s relief (maybe even to the one person on Staten Island) they have been assured of a Manhattan address. They will be even more pleased when they learn that — at least temporarily for two or so years as a “state of the art” facility is being built — they will only be blocks from 30 Rock in Midtown, likely in Tower 49, a one-minute walk from 30 Rock. A deal has yet to be finalized though and a few other nearby buildings are under consideration. Architects and designers are examining numerous sites for the eventual HQ (with a target move in date of early 2027) including sites by Times Square, Hudson Yards and Grand Central, with aspirations to build TV studios akin to Comcast’s Stamford sports campus (SpinCo will have to decamp from that and find another space in Connecticut for the likes of the Golf Channel).

The network name also caused much consternation, particularly for Maddow. When alternate names were floated, she pushed back. Staffers were relieved when Lazarus told them they were keeping MSNBC. The decision avoided costly rebranding, yes, but more importantly, it demonstrates that despite any political differences, Lazarus knows better than to offend the one person in the building who matters most.

For viewers at home, no figure looms larger than Maddow. The face of the network, she became the pacifier that the Resistance wine moms so desperately needed during Trump’s first term. Her righteous indignation and opening monologues that could run as long as 24 uninterrupted minutes became must-see TV for anti-Trump America. But in 2022 she stepped back from her five-night-a-week television schedule as part of a new contract that allowed her to make podcasts and documentaries for the network in addition to one weekly appearance on Monday nights. Last year, she negotiated a $25-million annual salary (down from $30 million) in a 5-year extension.

To mark the first 100 days of Trump’s second presidency, Maddow returned to her old schedule, appearing every weeknight. But that revival will be short-lived. Network insiders tell me she is exhausted, and once Trump’s 100 days is up, she will drop back to only popping by on Monday nights before decamping to her Massachusetts cabin. “It’s criminal,” one rival executive told me while noting that the next hundred days will be more consequential than the first. Her bosses at 30 Rock acknowledge they would like to see her on air more where her appearances have been labeled by executives as “ratings Viagra.” (The Rachel Maddow Show is the only non-Fox show to crack the list of the top 15 cable shows in terms of ratings for the first three months of 2025.)

The challenge to keep those ratings high is now Psaki’s, who will come in as Maddow’s 9 p.m. replacement with a revamped interview show, The Briefing with Jen Psaki. Psaki told me she feels like a “guinea pig” of sorts. The network launched her on Peacock in 2022 with the interview show Inside with Jen Psaki, which led to a Sunday show on MSNBC and then a Monday night slot. She then launched a podcast and a newsletter. Like many TV first-timers, Psaki relied heavily on the autocue when she started off, and she has since grown into the role, becoming a popular figure among the MSNBC base who want insights from the Beltway filtered through a Democratic lens.

“I could never be Rachel even if I trained for five years in Rachel Maddow bootcamp, so all I can be is myself,” Psaki told me. “I come from 20 years of experience in government and politics. I want people to see it…as a real talk place where I’m going to give them a sense of what’s happening.” Psaki is less provocative than her predecessor. Viewers will ultimately decide if her show is an awkward fit or the medicine they need to hear to go to sleep every night.

Kutler’s former home at CNN seems to have lost its pulse and personality, and MSNBC hasn’t been shy about pointing that out. They recently put out a cheeky ad for Morning Joe saying they were “averaging twice as many viewers as CNN.” That ad was inspired by Scarborough’s reaction to CNN promoting a demo ratings win for CNN News Central. In March, MSNBC’s primetime lineup got nearly twice as many viewers as CNN, though Fox far outpaces both. CNN’s main draw of late appears to be Republican loudmouth Scott Jennings and the unhinged panels on Abby Phillips’ NewsNight that resemble the Jerry Springer Show. Fox News is dominating the ratings but covering Trump as if he was running the network (which some might argue he is).

That provides MSNBC with a big opportunity. It can reinforce its position as the primary network of the resistance while also having an industry leading newsgathering apparatus.

Just like Trump hopes that “Gulf of America” takes hold, MSNBC is hoping their new evening lineup will be adopted by viewers. The new schedule leans heavily on talent that Kutler has groomed. At the center is Psaki’s interview show. But Kutler is also a fan of panel shows and has dreamt up a liberal version of Fox News’s feisty The Five for the new 7 p.m. hour.

Kutler had already been experimenting with the format with The Weekend and will now be moving that show’s hosts — Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez — into the daily primetime slot. (The new name — The Weeknight — is as inspired as the previous one.) To replace them on Saturdays and Sundays, Kutler has recruited some new faces: Eugene Daniels who worked for POLITICO before joining MSNBC in March, and Jackie Alemany from The Washington Post. “I’m excited to be nervous,” Daniels told me straight off the back of anchor coaching. “The reason I made the jump is Rebecca is creating a cable news network that is for 2025 and beyond. She doesn’t have to retro fit it.”

The current Weekend hosts are set to kick off their new show in the first week of May, but questions abound about whether they are all ready for the greater pressures of primetime. “Group shows and ensemble shows are hard, but if it works it really works. And I think I’m surprised by how what we do works,” Sanders Townsend told me.

There are more programming decisions to firm up. Bosses have had discussions with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman to take over Psaki’s Sunday show, but I’m told these talks have ended, though Kutler remains a fan of the former POLITICO Playbook scribe. Sherman and co-founder Anna Palmer are instead working on their own programming for YouTube and are building a studio at their Washington townhouse office. To fill the empty air on MSNBC’s weekend schedule, I’ve learned Ali Velshi’s Sunday show will be extended an hour and The Weekend trio will also extend an hour on Monday nights to make up for Psaki’s 8 p.m. program.

The fate of Willie Geist — who does double duties on Morning Joe and the weekend edition of The Today Show — has been decided. Geist is too much of a talent for either network to pass up, and he’ll be the rare instance of split custody after the SpinCo divorce. He has been featuring more prominently on NBC of late, filling in for Kelly Clarkson on the red carpet for SNL’s 50th. But he has been a fixture on Morning Joe for years and Scarborough and Brzezinski would struggle to adequately replace him in the third chair. Should there be a last-minute snafu with Geist, I’m told both Joe and Mika are fans of sportswriter and podcaster Pablo Torre, who has been featured more regularly on Morning Joe.

Behind the scenes, the 100-person newsroom being created is a bright spot for a beleaguered industry battered by layoffs. It’s being overseen by Scott Matthews, a former colleague of Kutler’s from CNN, has already started advertising for a DC bureau chief (a key job for setting the tone of coverage for a political network that has leaned heavily on NBC’s Washington staff) and filled key roles such as the VP of newsgathering, poaching Erin Zimmerman from ABC News. When it comes to reporters, Matthews is looking for people who not only write, but also shoot, produce, edit and report while juggling the technology necessary to do a live report solo. The campaign embed model is what execs want to emulate, deployed across all areas of news.

But even while growing, everyone expects there to be layoffs at both MSNBC and NBC News.

NBC News programming will shrink dramatically. NBC Nightly News has roughly 22 minutes of airtime. Despite airing for four hours every weekday, The Today Show devotes only a handful of minutes to hard news. And then there is NBC News NOW for breaking news and live events, but that doesn’t carry the same footprint as the shows on the main channel. “If I work in broadcast news at NBC or MSNBC, I’m looking at MSNBC being a broadcast company investing back in the broadcasting business,” a former TV executive told me. “NBC profits are put back into Peacock and Universal. NBC News will continue to shrink. MSNBC and CNBC can invest in their core business.” The consensus is that if you're a correspondent, SpinCo rather than RemainCo is your best bet for the future.

“I would tell someone: Come where you think you can do your best reporting,” Kutler told me during our early April meeting when I asked for her advice on the split. She has been taking coffee meetings with staffers and trying to answer a laundry list of questions. Those sessions are where some of the best intel about the future of the network is emerging from.

Whether they like to admit it or not MSNBC’s fortunes are intertwined with Trump’s. Trump cares deeply about NBC. After all, NBC’s The Apprentice revitalized his public image as a savvy businessman when he was floundering as tabloid fodder. And it’s clear MSNBC is never far from his mind. In March, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, the president criticized “MS-DNC” as he termed it. “They have lost such credibility; and, frankly, what Nicolle Wallace said — I’ve never been a fan of hers, and she’s not very talented — but I’ll tell you, what she said the other day about that young man is disgraceful. She should be forced to resign,” he said. “And Rachel Maddow should be forced to resign. Nobody watches her anyway. I don’t know if — it’s not possible they pay her as much money as I hear — but certainly she’s lost all credibility,” he added. Kutler didn’t take the bait and backed her anchors.

But, of course, standing as a vanguard against the president is exactly what its liberal base of viewers wants. Criticism lobbied from the Resolute Desk might prompt consternation for most corporate leaders, but it’s earned media for a liberal cable channel. And as long as the broader Trump Show spins out of control, MSNBC will have regular fodder to keep viewers entranced.

“I think that MS has a distinct point of view,” Lazarus told me. “It has an audience and a following and I think our job is to serve that audience and following.” He knows — as does Kutler — that if they waver from being the voice of progressive America it would be a ratings and financial disaster.

In conversations with dozens of staffers there are those who are drinking the SpinCo Kool-Aid but just as many others who are anxious for what the future holds. There is the rosy future where, freed from Comcast corporate shackles, MSNBC and the other cable channels continually expand, reinventing themselves for the internet age. But if, as Lazarus said, SpinCo is a “well-funded startup,” is there an eventuality that MSNBC is sold a couple years from now? Is there a scenario where David Zaslav gets his Warner Bros. Discovery checkbook out and gobbles up assets? Or is this entity soon to be a cadaver prized by private equity transplant surgeons and sold for parts? “We are not doing this to sell pieces of it,” Lazarus said when I posed that question to him at our early April meeting at 30 Rock. “If we wanted to sell pieces of it, we would have just sold pieces of it.” But befitting its chosen name of “SpinCo,” everyone involved agrees on one thing — things are turning, changing rapidly, and no one knows exactly where it’ll land two years from now.