Saturday, November 15, 2025

Pssst MSNOW >> “We’re going to be raw.”...........And what if some of the findings of MS NOW’s news staff clash with what the network’s primetime partisan die-hards want to hear?

There is good reason for MS NOW to seek a jolt from the headlines.

While the network lures more audience overall than CNN, it lags both CNN and Fox News Channel among the viewers advertisers want most in news programming, people between 25 and 54.

In the third quarter of 2025, MS NOW’s viewership among that demographic was down 59% across the programming day, while CNN’s fell 45% and Fox News’ slipped 26%.

MS NOW, Known for Opinion, Brings Harder News Into Mix

by Brian Steinberg

Brian Steinberg covers the business of advertising, media and television as Senior TV Editor for Variety, which he joined in 2013. He has more than two decades of experience on the media beat, having worked for Advertising Age, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe and Salon, among other publications. He holds degrees from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Yale University.

“I think it’s important to note that we are a news department. And in our jobs the news and the facts will take us to whatever conclusion — the facts take us to in the story. And that is what we are here to do, what we focus on,’

/ says Scott Matthews, senior vice president of news-gathering for MS NOW.

“We never really worry at all about, you know, who is going to like the story and who is going to not like the story,” /he adds.

There is an expectation that the work of his staff will appear on both MS NOW’s opinion program as well as its daytime news hours, and across TV and digital as well. . .

FACTIOD:

Besides, MS NOW is one of the biggest assets in the portfolio of its new corporate parent, Versant, which is being spun off from Comcast and NBC over the next several weeks.

The new company faces ongoing declines in its main lines of revenue, according to a recent research note from Craig Moffett, an analyst with MoffettNathanson.

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The newly convened news-gathering staff aims to get inside the Beltway and out, with Sudeep Reddy, the network’s new Washington Bureau chief, organizing teams devoted to the White House, Congress, national security, legal affairs and more.

Meanwhile, other parts of the team want to dig in to scenes across the nation to demonstrate the effects of national policy.

During the government shutdown, some reporters were sent to talk to people on line at food pantries, showing what the end of SNAP benefits meant to citizens who depend on them
“We are taking all of these things that are being decided in Washington, and we’re showing the real world impact,” says Erin Zimmerman, vice president of newsgathering
”And it’s not just our linear viewer, but it’s our digital viewers.
We’re doing a lot of digital packages, a lot of TikTok’s, trying to cover the whole realm.”

They are doing it all without much time for idle thought.

The bulk of the team has been assembled over the last several months, with many coming over from NBC News. And while MS-Old and MS-New are naturally driven by the news cycle, more headlines in days to come will be generated by a team that continues to coalesce.

No pressure, folks!