Dial Down

Tone it down, they said:

While the chyrons still blare the blow-by-blow of every move made by President Donald Trump, behind the scenes, staffers say they are operating with limited information about the future of their programming. Maddow, for example, is exhausted herself, insiders say, and at the conclusion of Trump’s first 100 days she plans to step back from her nightly one-hour program and begin to boost her stops along the late-night TV circuit where she has occasionally appeared on “Late Night with Stephen Colbert,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and other friendly turfs. The rotation will see Jen Psaki put into a more prominent role as the “guinea pig” tasked with keeping MSNBC’s flagging rates above water without Maddow’s assistance. Making the job tougher are new rules being handed down by MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler, a protegé of CNN’s Jeff Zucker. “Fantastic leader,” one rival TV exec told Politico. “Knows how to move fast and is unafraid to break things,” said a former colleague. Kutler is believed to be the driving force behind pushing out Joy Reid after several Comcast executives rolled their eyes at some of her most bombastic on-air rants. When Reid failed to take the hint after a salary cut, it was Kutler who swung the axe and “DOGE’d” the staff, most of whom either lost their jobs or were forced to reapply for positions with the network. “For a long time, talent had a lot of power here and now they don’t,” one MSNBC staffer said.

The power trips are over...