No, Chuck Todd isn’t going to replace Rachel Maddow

| 9:00 pm EDT March 20, 2022
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Ever since Rachel Maddow revealed that she was taking a temporary leave of absence from MSNBC in order to work on a film project, major media outlets have been reporting that she could be planning to leave permanently later this year. There is no way to know whether these media reports are legitimate – and Maddow has already returned from her temporary leave. But there is one popular narrative about Maddow’s supposed departure that’s pretty easily disproven on an intuitive level.

We keep seeing one prominent Twitter pundit after another suggest that MSNBC is considering replacing Rachel Maddow with Chuck Todd. There never appears to be any sourcing for this. But it keeps getting repeated so often, numerous MSNBC viewers are now under the impression that it’s actually being considered. However, there is no way possible that MSNBC would even consider this.

Chuck Todd’s insidious “both sides” approach to political analysis has long resulted in strong ratings on Sunday mornings on NBC. But Todd’s same approach on weekdays on MSNBC has consistently resulted in poor ratings. Todd was in the semi-unimportant 5pm eastern time slot (when most 9-to-5 types are still driving home from work), but his ratings were too weak even for 5pm, so now he’s been moved to the throwaway time slot of 1pm eastern (when 9-to-5 types are neither at home nor on lunch break).

From a profit and loss standpoint, it makes sense for MSNBC to let Todd continue to have a weekday show at 1pm. He’s already under contract with the parent company for his Sunday morning show, so it’s likely MSNBC is getting Todd on the weekdays at little or no extra cost. And since 1pm is a throwaway slot, it’s more profitable to let Todd have it on the cheap, than to pay for a quality 1pm host who wouldn’t be able to improve ratings by much in that time slot anyway.

In other words, as with all things at the mega-corporate level, this is about money. This brings us to the crucial 9pm eastern time slot, which Rachel Maddow has occupied for several years. She’s the rare cable news host who delivers top level ratings and top level credibility – most hosts can deliver one or the other, or neither, but not both – which is why she gets the premier time slot and gets paid the big bucks.

If Maddow were to depart, MSNBC would need to replace her with someone who can also deliver top shelf ratings, in order to make sure the crucial 9pm time slot remains profitable. Chuck Todd has already proven, in two different time slots, that he can’t do that on MSNBC. So Todd obviously would not be in consideration for the network’s most crucial ratings-friendly 9pm time slot, because it would be very unprofitable for MSNBC’s corporate bosses.

Is Rachel Maddow really considering leaving MSNBC? We have no way of knowing, because we have no idea where these major media outlets are even getting this supposed inside information from. This kind of thing doesn’t leak itself, so who’s leaking it, and what’s their motivation? We just don’t know. Someone obviously wants us all to believe that Maddow is considering leaving. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. But even if it is true, MSNBC would replace her with someone who can deliver strong ratings in the crucial 9pm time slot. And that’s certainly not Chuck Todd.