MSNBC Wants to Meet More Fans Without Using Its Cable Network

A few of MSNBC’s most dynamic moments in 2025 could not happen on a TV display.

Certainly, which will already be the case. When Rashida Jones, the president of the NBCUniversal-backed cable community wandered across the foyer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music this previous Saturday, she was struck by how most of the individuals she met hailed from exterior the realm. Folks had come from locations like London and Hawaii to seize a glimpse of MSNBC hosts and anchors like Rachel Maddow, Katy Tur, Pleasure Reid, Jen Psaki and Chris Hayes, all a part of a day-long summit held with roughly 4000 paying attendees to debate the approaching election and nationwide politics.

The time has come, says Jones, to acknowledge that MSNBC’s followers would possibly need extra than simply the cable community itself to get a full repair. The Brooklyn viewers “informed us what they wished,” says Jones, who took the reins of MSNBC in 2021. “The thought of bringing the model to the individuals is one thing I need to double down on – in quite a lot of completely different locations.”

MSNBC has already been experimenting with an array of reside fashions. In March, the media outlet held an invite-only occasion in Washington that featured Psaki, Steve Kornacki and Stephanie Ruhle. In Chicago, through the Democratic Nationwide Conference, Luke Russert and Symone Sanders Townsend interviewed Eric Holder and Stacey Abrams in an occasion sponsored by Lyft (Russert, beforehand an NBC Information editorial staffer and the son of former “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert, was employed late final yr as a number for MSNBC’s reside occasions).

There are good causes to check the patron urge for food for MSNBC conferences, dinners and discussions. All three main cable information retailers — MSNBC, Fox Information and CNN — are anticipated to shed subscribers and affiliate income in 2024, based on projections from Kagan, a market-research agency that’s a part of S&P International Intelligence. MSNBC’s subscriber base is seen eroding by almost 6% this yr, to 64.5 million, in contrast with 68.5 million in 2023. Affiliate income is predicted to fall by almost 4% in 2024, to $295.1 million, in contrast with $307 million within the year-earlier interval.

Occasion income isn’t more likely to dominate the monetary calculus behind MSNBC, but it surely might actually assist to offset some shortfalls.

Saturday’s occasion represented “a place to begin that spoke to the potential of the place we will convey the reside enterprise within the yr forward,” says Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC’s senior vice chairman of content material technique.

She envisions launching each small, personal occasions that may have a sponsor, and bigger ideas that additionally generate income. Some may very well be primarily based on giving attendees a peek at numerous tasks launched by MSNBC staffers. Others might faucet MSNBC’s rising slate of audio content material.

Kutler says she was impressed by speaking to an attendee this weekend from Florida – not recognized lately as a state that might naturally have an MSNBC base – who puzzled if the community would possibly think about internet hosting a dinner for its Florida-based backers. Inside 24 hours, the fan adopted up with venue solutions and concepts for spurring attendance.

And he or she says individuals got here from locations considerably additional away than executives anticipated. “Once we first began planning this a number of months in the past, we thought individuals would come from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey.”

Others have experimented with related ideas. CNN mounted a sequence of reside “Citizen” occasions lately that convened newsmakers and CNN anchors to debate main problems with the day. Amongst those that took half have been Jimmy Kimmel, Dr. Anthony Fauci and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Fox Information Channel has organized its “Patriot Awards” for the previous few years; the occasion has even included a meet-and-greet and a whiskey tasting.

Stay occasions will assist foster “a two-way dialog” between MSNBC personalities and the individuals who watch them, says Jones. The journalist and analysts discuss “each evening in entrance of an enormous viewers, however they don’t get to listen to them and aren’t seeing what they react to,” she says. “You’re not trying into the whites of their eyes.”