As MSNBC enters its final days as the sister channel to the Peacock Network, it’s capping its nearly 30-year run with a final celebration of its close relationship with its audience. Or, more effectively, a party.
The progressive cable news network is hosting its second New York live event on Saturday at the Hammerstein Ballroom, a century-old theater that’s played host to everything from David Bowie’s final public performance to Howard Stern’s 60th birthday party. The year’s event, “MSNBCLive ‘25: This Is Who We Are,” swaps last year’s focus on the drumbeat for democracy’s potential demise ahead of the 2024 election for an opportunity for the network’s plethora of hosts — and its devout audience — to navigate the chaotic news cycle brought by the Trump administration together.
This year’s programming splits its time blocks into morning and evening sessions, along with a “capstone lunch,” dividing up its hosts across time blocks while offering some opportunities for crossover throughout the daylong affair.
The morning session will feature hosts such as “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and primetime host Chris Hayes, while its evening session will feature primetime stars Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki and Ari Melber. The lunch will include a conversation between Brzezinski and political strategist Huma Abedin for Brzezinski’s “Know Your Value” initiative, and the event will feature live tapings of Nicolle Wallace’s podcast “The Best People” with guest Martin Sheen and Psaki’s podcast “The Blueprint” with “I’ve Had It” hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan.
While it’s a reflection of what the network is now, the live event is also set against the backdrop of what the network will be in a few weeks. MSNBC is changing its name to MS NOW (My Source for News Opinion and the World, per its new tagline) as part of Versant’s split from NBCUniversal and Comcast, offering the largest test for its relationship with its viewers as its core tenets — its name and logo — get a facelift.
“It’s a perfect time,” “The 11th Hour” host Stephanie Ruhle told TheWrap in an interview. “Facelifts are the hottest thing right now. Just ask Kris Jenner.”
But the theme as a whole is a reflection of the passion MSNBC’s audiences have for the network, even if its ratings are still relatively muted compared to Fox News’ numbers. MSNBC’s live event last year sold out the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with attendees from across the country flying in to hear the likes of Maddow, Psaki and Melber weigh in on the news in person. (The “Morning Joe” hosts are new additions to this year’s lineup.)
“‘This Is Who We Are’ explains who we are as a network, and what we do, and how we serve our audience, and then how our audience gets involved with us in person,” said Lauren Peikoff, the executive producer of events for MSNBC. “That, to me, means that we are building a space that is a two-way conversation.”
Such is the course of this year’s event, where one could see Hayes kick off a morning session before the “Morning Joe” staples Scarborough and Brzezinski launch into their events, or hosts Ruhle and Ali Velshi taking audience questions about economic turbulence in the evening session before hosts like Maddow and Psaki grace the stage.
“I don’t want people to be filled with anxiety,” Ruhle told TheWrap. “We know they already are. So if we can help people make sense of what’s happening in the economic world around them, then that’s a win for us, right?”
“We really are ourselves,” Hayes told TheWrap of the various MSNBC hosts. “We’re not performing some version of ourselves, they’re things that we really believe, clearly and honestly, and I think that really resonates with people, and it creates this really special connection that the live shows provide this opportunity to kind of deepen that.”
The network’s name and logo changes don’t seem to bother any of its talent, as many told TheWrap that it doesn’t interfere with the mission of guiding their audiences through the news.
“Throughout all of the changes that the network is going through, the mission is still the same, where our show is a show where you can come for smart conversation,” “The Weeknight” host Symone Sanders Townsend told TheWrap. “We’re going to peel back the layers for you. We’re going to get the newsmakers on and make sense, and we’re going to ask the questions that you want to know. We’re going to try to attack a different angle someone else hasn’t done. And hopefully, our goal is that you walk away thinking about something you know new or differently, that you learn something in the process.”
This year’s event marks the first live event for “The Weeknight” hosts Sanders-Townsend, Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele since their move from weekends to weekdays, and the three told TheWrap that MSNBC Live gives them an opportunity to reflect the network’s reach — it boasts more TikTok likes than either CNN or Fox News, and the network has begun uploading longer segments onto YouTube — through a live event. (Or, as Menendez put it, meeting Steele’s “groupies” in person.)
“The reality of it is, it’s a chance for us to get a little bit closer to that very diverse audience and to be in space with them in a way that you don’t see other programs or networks or cable outlets doing, making that connection with the audience,” said Steele, a former Republican National Committee chairman-turned-MSNBC-analyst, who noted how the network’s politically diverse audience can sometimes surprise him.
“I always laugh when I will make a point on a subject or whatever, and I get these texts from my Republican friends who are either upset or annoyed with me because I made this point,” Steele said. “I quickly point out to them, ‘But I thought you didn’t watch?’”
That’s not to say issues like the test of U.S. democracy won’t come up, as Hayes told TheWrap the MSNBC audience often seeks “solidarity and camaraderie” from its hosts as the country moves through its second Trump presidency, which he characterized as “the most sustained assault on the constitutional order of our lives.”
“The antidote to fear is to be with other people who see the way you do, and see the threat for what it is, and also to know that there’s millions and millions of people like that,” Hayes said.
While the event is the final such engagement under the MSNBC brand, serving as its swan song, Peikoff said that the network’s core mission — and its sense of community with its audience — will not change as it enters its MS NOW era.
“This event is an MSNBC event, this is not an MS NOW event,” Peikoff said. “Reiterating as we go that, ‘this is who we are, we are the people you’ve come to trust, we’re going to remain those people.’ Maybe the name is going to change by a couple of letters, but the brand promise and who we are and what our audience comes to expect of us does not change and will not change with that.”
The droves of fans attending the live event — the network expects a full house — certainly speak to that.
