MSNBC President Rashida Jones resigned Tuesday, a major change for the cable network as it waits to see whether its loyal liberal viewers will tune in again when President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.
Rebecca Cutler, MSNBC's senior vice president of content strategy, has replaced Jones as interim president, the company said. Jones, who has held the position for nearly four years, will remain in an advisory role until March.
Jones' departure comes amid ratings pressure on the cable news industry, particularly on MSNBC, which has seen a sharp decline in viewership for left-leaning programs since Trump's election in November. Executives said the post-election decline in approval ratings was normal and they expected it to recover as Mr. Trump settles into a second term.
MSNBC is also among a group of cable channels whose parent company, Comcast, is spinning off into a new company this year. The separation will separate MSNBC from the reporting engine of its longtime affiliate, NBC News, but the cable network announced Tuesday that it will seek to hire a new head of reporting and a new head of talent.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, which will oversee the new company, including MSNBC, told colleagues in a phone call Tuesday announcing Jones' departure. spoke.
Lazarus also said MSNBC would keep its name after the separation and expressed confidence in Cutler, calling her “the ideal leader to lead us through this moment.”
Cutler joined MSNBC from CNN in 2022. There, she was the architect of CNN+, an ambitious streaming news service that was shut down that year after its new parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, acquired the network.
MSNBC's total viewership has fallen by roughly half since Election Day, according to Nielsen statistics. The network announced Monday that Rachel Maddow, its most popular host, will return to air a one-hour show every night on Eastern 9th for the first 100 days of Trump's inauguration.
Jones spent more than a decade rising through the ranks at MSNBC and NBC News, where he previously oversaw daytime and weekend newscasts. She began her career in local television news, including serving as a live broadcast program director for the Weather Channel.
Jones made several programming changes during his tenure as head of MSNBC, which began in February 2021. She appointed Alex Wagner to replace Maddow as host four days a week at 9 p.m., extending her morning show, Morning Joe. The show runs until the 4th hour. There were also some high-profile exits, including Mehdi Hasan, anchor of the canceled Sunday night show.
She also took charge during an extraordinary on-air revolt over the decision to hire Ronna McDaniel, former chair of the Republican National Committee, as a commentator on NBC News and MSNBC. Maddow and Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough expressed regret over the hire, and McDaniel was fired a few days later.
Jones has not yet announced any plans after MSNBC. She still had time left on her contract, according to three people familiar with the details of her contract.
In a phone call Tuesday, Maddow said Jones acted as a “heat shield” to protect MSNBC anchors from pressure.
“Other companies don't operate like that because you've insisted that we treat each other with respect and that you take the heat outside,” Maddow said. .
Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.
