MSNBC cancels Joy Reid’s lefty show as network makes major shakeup

( NYPost )

MSNBC liberal mainstay Joy Reid’s show has been canceled as part of a major overhaul by the network’s new president Rebecca Kutler, according to a report.

The 7 p.m. program hosted by ardent Trump critic Reid, 56, will be replaced by a new panel show featuring co-hosts Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders Townsend, the New York Times reported, citing insiders.

The final episode of Reid’s show, “The ReidOut,” will air sometime this week, ending a mainstay of MSNBC’s lineup for the past five years, according to the Times.

MSNBC declined to comment.

It marks the first large-scale shake-up by MSNBC’s new president, Kutler, since she took over the liberal network earlier this month, as it looks to double down on its lefty agenda during the second Trump administration.

Reid, one of the most prominent Trump-bashers in the mainstream media, has been a long-serving anchor at the network, hosting the weekend talk show “AM Joy” since 2016 before being named anchor of the 7 p.m. slot in 2020.

She has made a series of infamous rants in recent months, including telling Trump supporters to “make your own dinner” at Thanksgiving, saying they should “suffer the consequences of your votes.”

Kutler is making other major changes at MSNBC as she looks to change the fortunes of the network, where ratings have consistently trailed behind Fox News.

Alex Wagner — who has hosted weeknights at 9 p.m. — is also losing her anchor chair after Rachel Maddow returned to five days a week at the network to cover the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

Maddow is set to return to anchoring just one day a week on Mondays later this year.

In December, Nielsen Media Research revealed that Reid had lost almost half her viewers since the election of Donald Trump, with MSNBC seeing a whopping 53% drop in primetime viewership following the Nov. 5 result before rebounding somewhat in the four weeks following the presidential inauguration.

That same month, MSNBC reportedly offered some of its most prominent stars, including Reid as well as Stephanie Ruhle, major pay cuts if they wanted to remain in their anchor chairs.

One of Reid’s replacements in the 7 p.m. slot, Sanders Townsend, was previously a spokesperson for Kamala Harris before being hired by MSNBC in 2022.

Kutler, a former senior executive at CNN has made it clear that MSNBC faces unique challenges as it looks to work with a Trump White House and prepares to be spun off into a new publicly traded company along with other NBCU cable networks.

MSNBC and some of its fellow cable networks are being spun out by Comcast, forcing MSNBC to build up some of its own reporting and newsgathering infrastructure.

As part of these changes, Kutler is expected to announce a new MSNBC bureau in Washington DC in the coming months, where the company is hiring for a new Washington bureau chief as well as new heads of talent, newsgathering, and content strategy.

“Our jobs are hard on a normal day, and these are not normal times,” Kutler told MSNBC employees on the first day her role was announced by Mark Lazarus, the NBCU executive who is leading the new spin-off.

“It’s going to be hard, but it’s also going to be exciting and interesting and a really important time to do what all of us do.”

Among the other shake-ups expected, weekend host and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki will anchor one of the primetime hours during the week, a source familiar with the changes told The Post.

Kutler, in her previous role as MSNBC’s senior vice president of content strategy, spearheaded both Townsend and Psaki when they joined the network three years ago.