The future of news is not just about distribution but about building deeper, more direct relationships with audiences wherever they are.

That was the message of the session “The MS NOW Playbook: Building Community Across Platforms.”

Moderator Lachlan Cartwright of Breaker Media was joined by Marcus Mabry, MS NOW’s senior vice president of content strategy; Ari Melber, anchor and chief legal reporter; and Jen Psaki, anchor of “The Briefing Room With Jen Psaki” and social-media series “Psaki Bombs.”

Their conversation explored how the network is evolving beyond traditional linear television.

They said MS NOW’s independence — after NBCUniversal spun the former MSNBC and most of its other basic-cable networks into Versant in January — has become a strategic advantage.

Independence aligns with the brand’s editorial identity, Melber said. Psaki described the post-transition organization as “smaller, mightier, more agile.”

That shift has allowed the company to invest in areas it had not prioritized before, particularly digital products and audience engagement.

Rather than positioning itself as just another streaming outlet, MS NOW is focused on creating a community product that deepens trust and participation.

Mabry said that MS NOW’s new app, slated to launch this summer, is not a streaming app. Instead, it is meant as a news-first community platform that gives audiences more direct access to talent, reporters and analysis.

The goal is to create a relationship where users can ask questions, interact with journalists and feel part of an ongoing conversation.

The strategy begins with audience needs, not with assumptions from inside the newsroom, Mabry said. It is rooted in research about what viewers want most: trustworthy information, context and a sense of connection in an overwhelming news cycle.

That sense of connection was central to the discussion of “superfans,” a term the panel used to describe the highly engaged viewers who do more than simply tune in.

Psaki said that at live events and in product testing, it became clear that the audience sees itself as part of a community, not just a passive viewership.

Melber added that “people don’t watch the news, they watch people,” noting that audiences connect with hosts through personality, perspective and shared experience. That dynamic, the panel argued, is what differentiates MS NOW in a crowded media market.

The conversation also described an aggressive digital expansion.

Melber discussed his early embrace of YouTube as a way to extend interviews and conversations beyond the limits of linear television. Psaki echoed that point, saying that an hour-long show leaves little room for the lengthier discussions audiences increasingly want.

Both described digital video, YouTube originals, podcasts and short-form social content as ways to reach people who may never watch cable news but still want credible journalism. The network now draws more YouTube views than other news networks, heightening the payoff of that investment.

“The audience is so spread apart,” Psaki said. “You have to capture them where you can find them.”

Looking ahead, the panelists said their success will depend on staying experimental, meeting audiences across platforms and maintaining trust in an era shaped by misinformation and AI-generated content.

For MS NOW, the playbook is not just about audience growth. It is about creating a news brand built on authenticity, accessibility and community.

© 2026 NAB

NEW YORK—Overall TV viewing declined in April but an upswing in cable news viewing increased cable’s share of the TV audience for the second straight month, according to Nielsen's April 2023 report of The Gauge, a monthly snapshot of total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption that occurs through a television.

This gain for cable also represents the first back-to-back share increase for the category since the inception of The Gauge in May 2021. Both streaming and broadcast lost viewing share while streaming retained the largest share of total TV viewing.  

With a decrease of 1.9% from March to April, total TV usage in the U.S. declined for the third consecutive month, a trend that is typical as the summer months approach. By comparison, time spent watching TV declined 2.1% over the same period in 2022, Nielsen reported. 

The cable category exhibited the smallest dip in viewing across all categories in The Gauge this month, decreasing 0.6% vs. March, and was able to gain 0.4 share points to account for 31.5% of total TV viewing in April. Cable news viewing increased 4.3% from March to April and accounted for the largest portion of cable viewing (19%). 

Even so, time spent watching cable content was down 12.0% in April 2023 compared to a year earlier and the category has lost 5.3 share points in the last year. 

At 23.1% share of total TV, broadcast viewing was down 2.7% in April and the category lost 0.2 share points on the month. The completion of the NCAA basketball tournament, and The Masters golf tournament, were the most-watched broadcast programs in April, but broadcast sports viewing overall dipped 17.1% vs. March to account for 9.6% of the category. The general drama genre increased 2.1% in April, driven by titles like NCIS, Blue Bloods and Chicago Fire. From a year-over-year perspective, broadcast viewership was down 3.7%, and the category has lost 1.6 share points, Nielsen reported. 

Time spent with streaming content was down 2.1% in April compared with March, and the streaming category recorded a loss in share (-0.1 pts.) for the second consecutive month. However, streaming still concluded the month with the largest share of TV at 34.0%.

Offsetting April's dip in streaming consumption were the FAST (free ad-supported TV) offerings of Tubi TV and Pluto TV. Tubi TV usage was up 6% from March, and the platform added 0.1 share point to capture 1.1% of overall TV, and Pluto TV viewing increased 3.9% on the month to stay at 0.8% of TV. In March 2023, Pluto TV exhibited the largest increase in usage across all streaming platforms at 4.6%. 

Additional streaming highlights include:

• Time spent watching YouTube (excluding YouTube TV) on television increased 1.5% in April, which led to a gain of 0.3 share points and upheld YouTube as the most-watched streaming platform at 8.1% of overall TV usage.
• Despite having the two most-watched streaming titles in April ("The Night Agent" and "Love is Blind"), Netflix was down 7% in usage vs. March and lost 0.4 share points to finish at 6.9% of total TV.
• Disney+ was down 1.7% in usage but retained its 1.8% share of television on the strength of "The Mandalorian", which was the third most-watched streaming title in April.
• Viewing via MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor) and vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributor) streaming apps represented 5.4%* of total television use in April, including 1.2% attributed to YouTube TV, and 0.4% to Hulu Live.

CHICAGO, Ill.—Nexstar Media has announced that its NewsNation news and entertainment cable network is significantly expanding its live news programming and that by early June the network will have added 12 hours of live news programming each week. 

Once the expansion is complete, the network, which reaches about 75 million U.S. television households, will have increased its weekly original programming from 21 hours at its launch in September 2020, to a total of 61 hours of live news, analysis, and talk every week.

“NewsNation is well down the path to becoming a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week cable news network, and this latest expansion is a clear demonstration of our commitment to making that a reality,” said Sean Compton, president of the networks division of Nexstar Media Inc.  “The appetite for balanced, unbiased news has never been greater, especially in light of the war in Ukraine.”

As part of the expansion, NewsNation’s live late evening national newscast, which debuted with the outbreak of war in Ukraine, will permanently join the network’s programming line-up weeknights from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. ET.  

In addition, in June, NewsNation’s live, national morning news programming will expand to four hours each weekday. 

Beginning Monday, March 28, “Rush Hour,” NewsNation’s early evening newscast anchored by Nichole Berlie, will expand one hour and air weeknights from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET. 

Joe Donlon, who has anchored “The Donlon Report” since spring of 2021, has decided to leave NewsNation; his last show will be Friday, March 25. 

WASHINGTON—The FCC has officially approved requests from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and ESPN to be exempt from audio description rules that are required of top national non-broadcast networks, based on the amount of non-live linear programming the networks offer per calendar quarter.

Audio description programming features audio that describes important video elements in a program for the visually impaired. The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 mandates that networks with more than 50,000 or more subscribers provide 87.5 hours of audio description per calendar quarter.

However, there is an exception available for networks that don’t air at least 50 hours per quarter of primetime programming that is not live or near-live.

TV Tech previously reported that Fox News and MSNBC, who were cited in the top five national non-broadcast networks, had filed requests to be exempt from this requirement. Subsequently, CNN and ESPN did the same, as they fell in the top 10 list of networks..

The FCC found that the networks did provide on average less than 50 hours per quarter of non-live or near-live primetime programming, as many of their programming consists of news or sports coverage.

A point of note was that ESPN actually did air more than 50 hours of non-live or near live programming in the first and second quarter of 2020. That, however, was because of the lack of live sports programming available as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the third quarter of 2020, after live sports began to return, ESPN was once again airing fewer than 50 hours of non-live programming.

Calling the cancellation of live sporting events as a result of the pandemic “unprecedented,” the FCC excluded the first and second quarter of 2020 in its consideration for granting ESPN’s exemption.

As a result of the exemption, the top five non-broadcast networks that will subject to the FCC’s audio description rules as of July 1, 2021, are TLC, HGTV, Hallmark, History and TBS.

Nielsen estimates that 36.1 million people tuned in to watch primetime coverage of the results of the midterm elections on Tuesday. Four years ago during the previous midterm election, 22.7 million viewers tuned in during primetime.

The 2016 Presidential election drew 71 million viewers.Previous midterms drew more viewers than 2014, but not more than 2018. In 2010, the total was 34.9 million. In 2006 it was 31.4 million and 26.3 million watched in 2002.

Tuesday’s midterm coverage, drew a 22.2 household rating.

Most of the 2018 viewership was age 55 and up, with 20.2 million people in that demographic tuning in. There were 13.2 million people ages 35 to 43 and just 5.3 million 18 to 34.

The networks included in Nielsen’s total are ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision, PBS, CNN, CNNe, Fox Business, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.