Rachel Maddow inks new deal to remain at MSNBC despite ratings woes, questions about network’s future
MSNBC star Rachel Maddow will remain at the ratings-challenged network for the foreseeable future after inking a new contract, Fox News Digital has learned.
Maddow famously cut "The Rachel Maddow Show" to once a week in 2022 to pursue other projects despite her enormous salary, which was believed to be roughly $30 million per year before the new deal.
The Ankler, a media company that launched in 2022 and largely focuses on Hollywood, reported on Thursday that Maddow would take a $5 million per year "pay cut" and would now make $25 million per year for the next five years.
An MSNBC insider close to Maddow confirmed the deal is "done" but disputed the $25 million per year figure.
MSNBC declined to comment to Fox News Digital.
Maddow’s new deal comes as Comcast announced this week it would spin off NBCUniversal cable assets, including MSNBC, into a separate company that will not be tied to NBC News. As a result, the fate of shared resources and even the cable network's name and editorial direction are in question.
While MSNBC might look different in the near future, the network’s biggest star will remain in place. At least on Mondays, that is.
"The Rachel Maddow Show" aired every weeknight during its heyday when it often competed for "most-watched cable news host," but Maddow began hosting only on Monday nights and passed the Tuesdays-through-Friday baton to Alex Wagner two years ago. Maddow is also a mainstay on MSNBC’s coverage of big events, such as Election Night, and hosts podcasts and works on various side projects.
Maddow largely built her program around passionate criticism of President-elect Donald Trump for years and famously pushed since-debunked theories tying him to Russia. "The Rachel Maddow Show" thrived off the left’s loathing of Trump, averaging 2.5 million viewers in 2017, 2.9 million in 2018, 2.8 million in 2019 and 3.2 million in 2020. However, media insiders speculated during the first year of Biden's presidency in 2021 that Maddow was not long for the job and she eventually rolled back her workload after a lengthy hiatus.
So far in 2024, "The Rachel Maddow Show" has averaged 2.4 million viewers on Monday nights but many of them have tuned out Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day. MSNBC has seen its audience crater on the heels of Trump’s victory, and many believe that even liberal viewers are sick of the network’s nonstop anti-Trump programming.
"The Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 1.4 million viewers since the election, shedding 41% of its viewers. Things are even worse among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults age 25-54, where Maddow averaged 236,000 in 2024 but only 118,000 since the election for a 50% drop.