Morning Show Battle: MSNBC Hits CNN’s Ratings In New Ad Promoting Morning Joe’s Influence In DC

MSNBC dropped an ad in recent days promoting its flagship morning show, Morning Joe, and took direct aim at its CNN competition.

The ad opens by declaring Morning Joe is “averaging twice as many viewers as CNN” and is reaching some “2.6 million unique viewers every morning” across the show’s four hours. The promo goes on to say that Morning Joe is “the #1 morning cable show in DC” and has beaten “CNN in total audience every month for 10 straight years.” For a final punch, the ad calls Morning Joe the “place where America’s leaders start their day.”

Last week, Morning Joe did indeed top CNN during its four morning hours, 6 to 10 am, with 760,000 total viewers compared to 358,000 total viewers, respectively. Morning Joe has also been on an upward swing since both CNN and MSNBC were hit with a major viewer tune-out following Donald Trump’s reelection. The show is up some 17% since the dip, which took place between the early November election and Trump’s January 20th inauguration.

In March, Morning Joe also saw its numbers soar on YouTube with a whopping 22,662,412 views – up 82% from February’s 12,471,242 views.

For the first quarter of the year, Fox’s Fox & Friends dominated the morning show battle with 1.5 million average viewers, while Morning Joe landed second with 679,000 and CNN came in third with 496,000. In the key 25-54 age demographic, Fox & Friends scored 198,000 viewers while Morning Joe had 63,000 and CNN News Central brought in 86,000. Notably, Fox & Friends runs an hour shorter than Morning Joe, from 6 to 9 am. CNN News Central starts an hour later, running 7 to 10 am, and its average also includes its 1 to 4 pm run. CNN’s 6 to 10 am hours averaged 342,000 total viewers and 64,000 demo viewers.

Host Joe Scarborough also highlighted the ad in a post on X, writing, “Congrats to the Morning Joe team! Morning Joe averages TWICE as many viewers as CNN from 6-10 am. More people have watched Morning Joe than CNN for 10 years straight. Morning Joe is the #1 show in DC for all of cable. Thanks for all you do. We are grateful!”

Watch the ad above via MSNBC.