SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Comcast is a massive conglomerate that provides broadband services, operates theme parks and a media company that includes NBC and affiliated properties. Now Comcast is spinning off almost all its cable TV channels into a separate company, and that includes the liberal news channel MSNBC, just as President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House for a second time. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us. David, thanks so much for being with us.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Pleasure.
SIMON: Let me ask you first to talk about the condition of MSNBC, because Fox won the last ratings period with 69% of the total cable audience. MSNBC had just 487,000 total viewers.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, sure. I mean, to set the table squarely, Fox News has been running away with ratings and cable news and oftentimes can accurately say it's the most popular channel on cable itself. After that, though, MSNBC and CNN have been battling for a certain kind of prominence. MSNBC falls of late pretty squarely as the second most-watched cable news channel in the country, besting CNN. And the question, in some ways, for us is - what's going to change if it's being spun off into what's now for the near term being called SpinCo for viewers, for people who may turn in? And the answer is, at least for the next year, probably not much at all. I think you're going to see basically the same lineup. You may see a very similar approach - NBC news reporting, for example, informing and infusing the news side of what it offers.
SIMON: More opinion or more news?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, ahead, this is the real question. How does MSNBC construct itself as it disentangles, as it consciously disengages from NBC news, which is sort of its parent? Will they move to a greater focus on reporting? As the Trump administration comes in for a second bite at the apple, and as the news pace quickens, will they be able to work out a deal and say, you know what, let's keep it as we've done and work out contracts to sustain continued reporting from former colleagues over at NBC? Or are they going to say, look, opinion is our strength. It's what people look to us for. It's what we need to offer. We can bring in voices from the outside, as we do during our most heavily opinioned shows from, say, 4 p.m. on and in the morning and really not have to spend so much money on the harder work of doing the reporting.
SIMON: Yeah. As we noted, MSNBC has been unabashedly liberal and very much opposed to Donald Trump. Is - any of that have the prospect of change?
FOLKENFLIK: In the near term, we think not, right? It's been able to differentiate itself from CNN by being a, you know, fairly purely liberal outlet. It just seems to have re-upped Rachel Maddow for about $25 million contract - a pretty hefty deal, given that she's no longer a daily host. We did see, however, just before this announcement of the spinoff that two of the network's chief stars, the "Morning Joe" hosts, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, headed down to Mar-a-Lago and met with Trump. Here's how Mika Brzezinski described their decision to do so on the air.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Joe and I realized it's time to do something different. And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.
FOLKENFLIK: They were punished by viewers. You know, in the days since that announcement, their audience has dropped dramatically.
SIMON: How is this good for Comcast, potentially?
FOLKENFLIK: We can look at the strategic question in a different moment, but there's one way this helps a lot. Comcast is probably in a moment where it's looking at these giants of Netflix and Apple and Amazon and even Disney and saying, we're not quite big enough to compete in the streaming era. And they may have to do some sort of tie-in or actual merger with CBS' parent company or with Warner Bros. Discovery
. If they were to go to regulators under the Trump administration, which is so eager to use the levers of power against media outlets that offend the incoming president, it might be a lot easier if they say, hey, those obnoxious folks over at MSNBC, we got nothing to do with them.
SIMON: NPR's David Folkenflik, he knows obnoxious. Thanks very much for being with us.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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