MSNBC, which has been struggling in the ratings for the last two years and has recently been hitting new 10-year lows, may finally be getting the attention it needs from NBC News.
According to Mediaite, new NBC News president Andrew Lack is beginning to take an active role at the left-leaning cable news network. He often attends MSNBC president Phil Griffin’s editorial meetings and regularly appears “underwhelmed” by the story pitches, according to one witness.
Producers of three shows, Now with Alex Wagner, The Ed Show, and All In with Chris Hayes have been asked by Lack to present evidence that they are still viable in the face of faltering ratings, which is not a good sign for the future of those shows.
In addition to those three programs, Lack is considering a total overhaul of MSNBC’s daytime programs, which have struggled more than the primetime programs under Griffin’s watch.
Mediaite also reports that while Lack likes Griffin personally, he has serious questions about Griffin’s ability to run a large cable news network like MSNBC. a concern that is more than warranted given the falling ratings and revenue at the network.
Griffin, who just two years ago proclaimed that MSNBC would beat Fox News by 2014, has run the network into the ground with his programming decisions during that period. He has already had to backtrack and jettison Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid from the daytime ranks less than a year after giving them their own shows, and seems incapable of making any decisions regarding the primetime lineup, which has been losing ground to CNN and HLN.
If Lack is really serious about reviving MSNBC, he should fire Griffin immediately, overhaul both the daytime and primetime programming, and change the political orientation to a more mainstream viewpoint.
