Rebecca Kutler has reshaped MS NOW in her first year as president, overhauling programming — including dropping Joy Reid — while building a newsroom from scratch and rebranding the network.
Despite questions about whether MSNBC’s audience would make the leap to MS NOW, the latest ratings suggest Kutler’s strategy is working. MS NOW’s first-quarter ratings (January-March) demonstrated double-digit growth across the weekday primetime and total-day lineup in both total viewers and the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic, according to Nielsen data.
The network’s primetime lineup — featuring Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell — averaged 1.4 million total viewers (up 8% from 1.02 million in the first quarter of 2025) and 139,000 in the demo (up 21% from 96,000). Its total-day numbers reached 690,000 total viewers (up 20% from 593,000) and 72,000 in the demo (up 36% from 57,000).
Compared to 2025’s final quarter, when the nearly 30-year-old network rebranded to MS NOW (My Source News Opinion World), the network is also up 23% in total viewers and 42% in the demo in primetime and 23% in total viewers and 47% in the demo in total-day viewing.
The first quarter of 2026 marked MS NOW’s most-watched quarter since the third quarter of 2024, ahead of the presidential election. While Fox News remains the most-watched cable news network, the 2026 numbers reflect that — after a post-election slump following Donald Trump’s win — viewers are giving MS NOW a second chance.
The growth comes as the network remade itself last year following parent company Versant’s split from Comcast and NBC News, triggering the network’s name change, and forging partnerships with Crooked Media and Sky News.
“Over the last year, our teams have worked tirelessly to stand up a new and independent newsroom,” Kutler said in a statement to TheWrap. “We’ve inked smart and strategic partnerships that have expanded our reach. All the while, we seamlessly launched MS NOW. Not only did our viewers stick with us through it all, new audiences are finding us. I said on day one, our top priority is to show up for our audiences. We have. We will. And, this is just the beginning.”
Change came quickly once Kutler fully took the helm in February 2025. After canceling several shows, she launched “The Weeknight,” anchored by former weekend anchors Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez, and moved “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” to the weekday primetime lineup. March 2026 marked the best month for “The Briefing” since its launch last May in both total viewers and the demo, while “The Weeknight” was also up from its May debut in both metrics.
“Morning Joe,” which regularly hosts lawmakers and is still watched by Trump, is up 15% from the same period last year in total viewers (784,000) and 40% in the age demo (88,000), and March marked its most-watched month in the demo since November 2024.
The show has expanded with a podcast and a newsletter, “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe,” written by co-anchor Joe Scarborough, which has amassed over 116,000 subscribers since its October launch. Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski last month renewed their contracts with the network through 2029, and “Morning Joe” is set to return to a three-hour broadcast in June.
Kutler has also expanded the network’s podcast stable with “The Best People” with “Deadline: White House” host Nicolle Wallace last May and “Clock It” by Sanders Townsend and “The Weekend” host Eugene Daniels in February. MS NOW also launched “Crooked on MS NOW,” a Saturday primetime show featuring a compilation of Crooked Media podcast episodes, which marked the strongest launch for a new original MS NOW series in total viewers in three years, according to Nielsen data. Roughly 66% of the show’s under-55 audience is new to MS NOW, according to ratings data.
The network has also prioritized original reporting in the wake of its severance from NBC News’ newsgathering resources, hiring alums from the likes of NBC News, the Washington Post, CNN and PBS NewsHour.
The network will launch another programming revamp in June — which includes Stephanie Ruhle hosting a 9 a.m. morning show, weekend host Ali Velshi moving to weekdays with “The 11th Hour” and NBC News veteran Peter Alexander launching an 11 a.m. weekday newscast, among other changes.
Versant is also reportedly in talks to purchase Vox Media’s podcast network, which could potentially complement MS NOW’s audio lineup with hosts like tech journalist Kara Swisher and sports stars Sue Bird & Megan Rapinoe.
How Kutler’s next big initiative, a direct-to-consumer subscription product, pans out will signal whether MS NOW’s audience follows beyond the cable channel.
