MSNBC Expands ‘Inside With Jen Psaki’ to Monday Night
Jen Psaki is stretching beyond her weekend shift at MSNBC.
The former Biden White House Press Secretary turned Sunday commentator is expanding her purview at the NBCUniversal-backed cable outlet. She will begin anchoring MSNBC’s 8 p.m. hour on Mondays, a slot that the regular host of that hour, Chris Hayes, typically has off. While Psaki’s “Inside with Jen Psaki will air on Mondays at 8 p.m., Hayes’ “All In With Chris Hayes” will continue to appear Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m.
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The new Psaki schedule starts Monday, September 25.
The maneuver will create a singular Monday block at MSNBC in which Psaki will lead into Rachel Maddow’s weekly program Mondays at 9 p.m. The move is also likely inject Psaki into primetime proceedings at moments of national import, when MSNBC President Rashida Jones often convenes a panel of popular commentators, including Maddow, Alex Wagner, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ari Melber and Nicolle Wallace.
MSNBC has reason to invest more heavily in Psaki. Her Sunday program, during which she tries to explain the nuances behind major national and political issues and profiles newsmakers, has fared well since its launch in March. Psaki is represented by UTA.
“Inside with Jen Psaki” was the most-watched cable-news program Sunday at noon in August, according to data from Nielsen. The program lured an average of 931,000 total viewers, compared with 922,000 for Fox News at noon and 599,000 for CNN.
She has wooed a crowd by utilizing tactics that aren’t the norm for cable news. Many hosts like to use weighted rhetoric or a desk-thumping demeanor. But Psaki has said she is more interested in helping people understand politics and policy. The ” hope is that when people watch the show, they come away and they learn something they didn’t know before, whether it’s about a person or an issue,” she told Variety in March.
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