MSNBC president Phil Griffin, whose cable news network is the only one among the big three to lose primetime viewers this season, told staffers he would look to turn things around by continuing a push for younger viewers in 2015.
Griffin, in a memo sent Monday, also promised “to get on the road — and outside of Washington” to broaden the network’s coverage.
“It’s no secret that 2014 was a difficult year for the entire cable news industry and especially for msnbc,” Griffin wrote.
“We have a long history of finding and nurturing great talent — and with an eye toward 2016 — we continued to build our next generation of top-notch journalists,” Griffin wrote.
The memo then singled out such 20-something hosts as Ronan Farrow, Kasie Hunt and Alex Seitz-Wald.
It also touted Shift, MSNBC’s just-launched streaming news service, which “is already allowing us to reach new, younger audiences.”
MSNBC’s push to embrace youth makes sense for the only cable news network to see its primetime audience erode in the current season, as measured by Nielsen.
Its 548,000 primetime viewers age 2 and older — down 18 percent from the comparable season a year ago — ranked third to CNN’s 560,000 (up 15 percent) and Fox News Channel’s 1,845,000 (up 1 percent).
MSNBC’s ratings slide suggests that Griffin’s making the network “the place to go for progressives” has outlived its usefulness as an audience builder.
A Pew Research study last year identified MSNBC as the most opinionated news network, with factual reporting accounting for just 15 percent of its content.
Whether the changes suggested in the memo will be enough to extend Griffin’s seven-year stint atop MSNBC remains to be seen.
An early-career claim was Griffin being that rare CNN producer who could get along with Keith Olbermann. The two later reunited at MSNBC until Olbermann left in 2011, took a chunk of its ratings with him and exposed Griffin’s vulnerabilities.
“Few have praised his ability to create strong shows for MSNBC,” a cable news veteran said of Griffin. “Given the fall in ratings, I think he’s in a lot of trouble.”