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Jen Psaki’s new MSNBC show scored an impressive debut Sunday with 1.1 million viewers, nearly doubling CNN’s audience in the time slot.
“Inside With Jen Psaki,” which airs Sundays at 9 a.m. PT, also nabbed the No. 1 spot in the key cable demographic among adults 25-54 with 137,000 viewers on the demo on average, according to Nielsen live plus same-day figures.
The Sunday premiere, which became MSNBC’s most-watched weekend premiere in more than four years since January 2019, also boosted the network’s ratings to become the highest-rated weekend since November’s midterm election week, tallying up as the network’s third highest-rated weekend of the past year. Last week, the network also had its most-watched week in four weeks with 775,000 total viewers.
The premiere marks a strong start for the former White House press secretary-hosted show, as the previous Sunday’s 9 a.m. PT time slot brought in 573,000 total viewers and 57,000 viewers in the demo.
Psaki’s debut also came as a formidable rival to Fox News’ “Fox News Live,” which earned 123,000 viewers in the demo.
In terms of total viewers, “Fox News Live’s” total viewership of 1.106 million slightly outnumbered the total viewership for “Inside With Jen Psaki,” which stands at 1.094 million viewers before the rounded figure. In the same time slot, CNN drew 599,000 total viewers and garnered 120,000 viewers in the demo.
The “Inside With Jen Psaki” launch follows a wide slate of changes among MSNBC’s weekend lineup, with network president Rashida Jones shifting Ali Velshi and Katie Phang’s hours and expanding Jonathan Capehart’s hours in a restructuring that began Feb. 18.
Following the launch, Psaki will continue to appear across MSNBC’s regular and special coverage programming, including 2024 presidential election coverage, and will remain a principal voice in NBC News’ primetime coverage of major political events, regularly contributing to NBC News’ “Today,” “Meet the Press” and Election Night programming.
“Inside With Jen Psaki” is executive produced by Alex Lupica. Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president of content strategy for MSNBC.