Jen Psaki’s MSNBC Weekend Show Expands to Weekday Prime Time
Jen Psaki, the former Biden press secretary turned popular weekend cable news host, will soon be a fixture in MSNBC’s prime time line-up as her show expands to Monday nights.
MSNBC announced that Inside with Jen Psaki will take over the Monday 8 p.m. time slot of Chris Hayes’s All In, which has been “anchored by a rotating group of hosts” for the past year. The change will start on September 25th and Hayes will still anchor his show Tuesday through Friday and Psaki will continue in her Sunday time slot at noon.
The announcement comes after Psaki’s Sunday show posted its best month of ratings since launching back in March. Inside with Jen Psaki won its Sunday time slot in August with 931,000 average total viewers, beating Fox’s 922,000 and CNN’s 599,000 viewers at noon. While Fox still leads the time slot for the third quarter overall, Psaki’s weekend success is a bright spot for the network which has long struggled in the weekend ratings.
MSNBC hyped Psaki’s success on air in a statement, saying her “expert on-air analysis and insights of the news driving each week propelled the show to finish Aug. as the most-watched cable news show in its time period. Since the show’s debut, she has interviewed numerous high-profile bipartisan lawmakers including Gov. Chris Sununu, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Cory Booker, former Gov. Larry Hogan, New York Mayor Eric Adams, and more.”
The network also highlighted Psaki’s long run in DC as a key asset for her show as the 2024 presidential election cycle heats up and she will continue to contribute to the network’s special election coverage programming.
MSNBC has seen strong growth in recent months as Donald Trump’s multiple indictments and the ongoing GOP primary have surged viewership and made the network increasingly competitive with Fox’s prime time lineup. Psaki will be the lead-in for Rachel Maddow, who also only hosts on Mondays, and in August scored over 3 million average viewers – the most in cable news.
