MSNBC host Joy Reid has seen her ratings drop 20 percent since she made unverifiable claims of hacking in April to explain controversial blog posts posted to her former website.
Contemptor reported the outspokenly progressive Reid's weekend program "AM Joy" has experienced double-digit losses in both total viewership and the vaunted 25-to-54 demographic since April 28, when she issued a public apology for the strange saga. Her program airs Saturday and Sunday mornings from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST:
Overall, AM Joy averaged 238,000 in the key demo and 1.113 million total viewers from early February to late April. Those numbers reflect both the Saturday and Sunday broadcasts. In comparison, her combined ratings since April 28 (her first post-controversy broadcast) are down 23 percent in the demographic (172,000) and 21 percent in total audience (876,000). (These numbers also include the May 19 broadcast during the Royal Wedding which brought in over a million total viewers and a quarter million in the demo.)
If you look at just the last month, following the most recent resurfaced blog posts that included her promoting 9/11 trutherism and comparing John McCain to the Virginia Tech shooter, the numbers have fallen even more. In the demo during June and July, AM Joy has averaged only 155,000 viewers while drawing 831,000 viewers overall.
Mediaite first exposed posts in December written by Reid more than a decade ago on The Reid Report—when she was a little-known Floridian—that were homophobic and indulged in conspiracy theories, for which she swiftly apologized. When further embarrassing and anti-LGBT posts came to light in April, however, she claimed she had been hacked and contacted the FBI to investigate.
After multiple sites investigated and found no evidence to substantiate her claims, she admitted on "AM Joy" there was no proof but also said, "I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me."
Reid was sharply criticized in the media for her half-baked explanation; the Washington Post's Erik Wemple compared her hacking claims those of former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.).
News sites, including the Washington Free Beacon, continued to uncover controversial material from her old blog that included a 9/11 conspiracy theory, questioned Israel's sovereignty, and superimposed John McCain's head on the body of the Virginia Tech shooter. Reid apologized again on June 1 and didn't address her prior claims of hacking, and MSNBC stood by her.
"Some of the things written by Joy on her old blog are obviously hateful and hurtful," MSNBC said in a statement at the time. "They are not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known at MSNBC for the past seven years. Joy has apologized publicly and privately and said she has grown and evolved in the many years since, and we know this to be true."