(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) MSNBC slashed the salary of leftist darling Rachel Maddow by $5 million as mounting uncertainty mars the cable channel.
Maddow will now earn $25 million over the next five years, down from her initial $30 million contract for The Rachel Maddow Show, which airs only one day a week, according to The Ankler and New York Post.
“This is a difficult time and they needed to keep her. No one else can do what she does. You can’t build a brand like it overnight,” an MSNBC executive said.
MSNBC is planning to use Maddow—one of the infamous spreaders of the Russian collusion hoax—on special occasions, including breaking news.
The pay cut comes amid financial turmoil and Comcast’s decision to spin off cable channels by 2025.
MSNBC has been suffering in ratings, dropping by 54 percent since Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in the 2024 election, the Post noted.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal will spin off USA, Oxygen, E!, Syfy, and Golf Channel into a new public company, The New York Times noted Wednesday. Comcast will retain ownership of NBC News, Bravo and Universal Studios.
As MSNBC became available for trading, several conservatives mounted a campaign to fundraise and buy the cable news channel.
Podcast host Dave Rubin offered to purchase MSNBC, according to his tweet on Nov. 12. Jack Posobiec said he was in Florida to assemble a team of investors to purchase MSNBC.
This is my official offer to buy MSNBC.
Call me, @comcast! pic.twitter.com/19uHLZSzg6
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) November 12, 2024
BREAKING: I am putting together a team of investors here in Palm Beach to discuss purchasing MSNBC pic.twitter.com/TenBMHFId3
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 13, 2024
Cenk Uygur, co-owner of leftist The Young Turks, also suggested he could purchase the network and transform it into a “populist channel.”
“It would get far better ratings and could actually help the national conversation,” he said. “It would be the ultimate sign that online media has won.”
Imagine if @TheYoungTurks bought @MSNBC. We'd need financing to do it, but imagine if we turned it into a populist channel! It would get far better ratings and could actually help the national conversation. It would be the ultimate sign that online media has won.
— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) November 21, 2024
