MS NOW’s The Weeknight Scores 30% Ratings Boost In Joy Reid’s Old Time Slot

(Photo Credit: MS NOW)

It looks like replacing Joy Reid worked out just fine for MS NOW.

The Weeknight — the 7:00 p.m. program co-hosted by Symone Sanders Townsend, Alicia Menendez, and Michael Steele that replaced The ReidOut last year — has scored a 30% surge in total viewership in February compared to the same month in 2025, according to Nielsen data obtained by Mediaite.

That jump — from 954,000 nightly viewers to 1.24 million — was punctuated by a 46% boost in the 25-54 demo, going from 115,000 nightly viewers to 168,000.

MS NOW still has a ways to go to catch Fox News, which is averaging 2.90 million total viewers and 296,000 demo viewers during the same time slot per Nielsen. But it beat CNN easily, where Erin Burnett’s nightly show is averaging 906,000 total viewers and 155,000 in the demo.

Ditching Reid and a number of other shows was MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler’s first major move when she got the top job last year. (Kutler also spearheaded the rebrand from MSNBC to MS NOW.) There was criticism at the time from some on the left, but the audience appears to be very much on board with The Reid Out’s replacement.

To be fair to Reid, her ratings were comparable in the first half of 2024 — when she averaged 1.29 million viewers — but that was an election year, and her ratings took a pretty big hit, as did much of cable news, in the months leading up to her last show in February 2025.

What’s been working for The Weeknight? The show has recently drilled down on several topics that appeal to MS NOW’s left-leaning audience, like the files tied to Jeffrey Epstein, Stephen Colbert’s squawking about the FCC, and a heavy dose of critical coverage of President Donald Trump and his crackdown on illegal immigration.

And in what could be read as a network vote of confidence in the 7 p.m. trio, The Weeknight crew will be a key part of MS NOW’s coverage of Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

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