Rachel Maddow was back on MSNBC Monday after a bout of COVID.
She had to take last Monday off, which I’m sure alarmed network executives. Maddow’s once a week show is their ratings jewel in the crown.
Indeed, Maddow’s return this past Monday was a success. She beat Fox News’s Sean Hannity at 9pm by almost 400,000 viewers. She had 2.45 million fans.
Maddow’s triumphant return pulled along Lawrence O’Donnell at 10pm who similarly trounced Greg Gutfeld. Stephanie Ruhle bulldozed Fox’s Trace Gallagher at 11pm,
Still, Fox News won the night with its earlier shows including The Five, Jesse Watters, and Laura Ingraham.
What’s weird about all this is how the key demo goes: the Fox audience is skewing a little younger as the evening goes on. The MSNBC key demo goes younger earlier, with Ari Melber beating Bret Baier. So younger people are watching Fox after 9pm? Or it just that the older Fox audience goes to bed?
Either way, it was great to see Rachel back on the screen, making sense of the incomprehensible.
