We have covered how the Donald Trump election win has been a disaster for the news networks of MSNBC and CNN. The former has dropped around 52 percent of its audience since last year, while CNN has fallen by around 46 percent, but that is due to having already low figures, as it dawdles a distant third in the cable news race. Both are experiencing audience levels that have not been seen for around 20 years.

The Hollywood Reporter attempted to assuage this disaster by suggesting that it was all just a typical downturn, something experienced on the news nets after any election. Small problem with this theory: Fox News has been experiencing a ratings surge since November 5, with viewership that beats the two competitors’ combined audience. On most nights, Fox gloms 75  percent of the news-viewing audience.

One other issue delivering anxiety with the media outlets across the news spectrum, not just cable networks, is the way news consumers are getting information from alternative media. This has been sending tremors throughout the industry, as the Trump victory underscored what few wanted to admit verbally: They have lost their grip on the national narrative.

At Axios, they looked at this development and have drawn up a new list of what the news audiences look like today. The site’s founders, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, have crafted a dozen categories to describe the type of news consumers they see and where they get their news. In telling fashion, they used denigrating labels for conservative customers (MAGA Mind-Melders,” “Right-wing Grandpas,” “The Musk-eteers”) while unsurprisingly being more gracious with Leftists. One group is called the “Liberal Warriors,” while those who consume information from Axios are in the “Elite Power-consumers” group, of course.

In oblivious fashion, MSNBC highlighted this piece, which is a very questionable move, considering how badly the network is being hammered in the ratings. Do you really want to delve into the topic of audience details as half of yours has just emigrated to one of eleven other options?! Well this is “Morning Joe” we are referring to, so self-awareness is not an issue whatsoever. 

They brought on VandeHei and Allen to discuss their piece, with host Scar-Joe tut-tutting as expected and even daring to include his show and network under that “elite” banner – “the universe that Axios and Morning Joe fit neatly in,” he desperately attempted. 

Co-founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei joined Morning Joe to discuss their reporting on the media.

📺: @Morning_Joe | @mikeallen + @JimVandeHei | @axios pic.twitter.com/IrQlyAaM4B

— Axios Comms (@AxiosComms) December 10, 2024

When it came time for Scar-Joe’s bride, Mika Brzezinski, to chime in, she did not disappoint, delivering the delusional thinking and projection analysis we have all come to expect from this crowd.

"I was at an appointment the other day, and a woman was talking about her parents. I think they are in the 'Right-wing Grandpa' category. And they are convinced, from what they have been reading, that hurricanes were brought here by our enemies. And convinced, absolutely convinced."  

No idea where they are getting this information, as Fox News has not pushed this conspiracy, but there goes Mika, citing a lone example to apply her paint-roller strokes to describe a class of citizens. What is surely precious here is her pretending that her network has not been the source of wild and hysterical theories. Nazi-fascist-death-to-democracy content is a quotidian feature at her network, with promises of Trump arresting children and pulling MSNBC hosts and hostesses off the air a regular script item.

Also, Mika’s own husband last year declared that Trump was not only going to arrest his political opponents but also execute them. “Just look at his past!” bellowed Scar-Joe one morning. (That would be Trump’s past of never arresting nor executing anyone.)

But there is another component to Mika’s obliviousness on the matter of the “Right-wing Grandpas” she so fondly hissed at in her ranting. It has been reported for some time now that not only is Fox News drawing a larger share of the Democrat voter demographic in prime time, but in truth, the MSNBC audience trends older than that at Fox News.

CNN’s median age was 67 this year, up from 60 in 2017. That figure is still lower than the median age of the Fox News (68) and MSNBC (71) audiences. 

As we said, it would have been wise for a network and news program to refrain from discussing audience particulars after suffering a loss of its customer base like a chicken wing restaurant discovered to have been serving fried pigeons. But this is MSNBC we are describing; they have shown for a long while that wisdom has little room on that network.

Axios Calls Fox Viewers 'Right-Wing Grandpas'—But MSNBC Audience Is Actually Older!https://t.co/KNhKNMHk1g@axios @MSNBC @FoxNews @Morning_Joe @JimVandeHei

— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) December 9, 2024