Joy Reid, Ousted from MSNBC, Ready to Court Network’s Fans With New Podcast

Joy Reid has revealed a new career move after her firing from MSNBC. The Joy Reid Show, a video podcast, will be launched on Monday, June 9, and film from Washington D.C.

via: Variety

Joy Reid was hosting a Monday-through-Friday program in the early evening for the soon-to-be-spun-off -from-NBCUniversal progressive news outlet as recently as February when she was ousted in a revamp of the network ordered by its new chief, Rebecca Kutler. In the waning minutes of her final broadcast of her program, “The Reid Out,” Reid vowed that viewers would not be hearing her last monologue. “We are not going to stop,” she said.

Now she is ready to go. Starting June 9, Redi will stream “The Joy Reid Show” on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons across YouTube and major podcast distributors. The debut episode will feature comedian Amber Ruffin and former South African ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool. The program will be based in Washington, D.C.

Reid enters the world of creator-based media as her former employer, MSNBC, is also taking it more seriously. Earlier this week, MSNBC unveiled a new podcast for Nicolle Wallace that will feature the “Deadline: White House” host in conversations with guests from Hollywood, sports, music, media and other sectors. The first two episodes of the show debut June 2, and under Kutler, MSNBC’s chief, MSNBC has begun putting a spotlight on its reach via YouTube and TikTok. MSNBC will, like many of its cable siblings, be spun off later this year into a new company called Versant, cutting its longstanding ties to NBC News.

Reid suggests the new show will let her give viewers an unfiltered view of the world and topics she deems important. “This podcast gives me the space to be all of me — smart, skeptical, curious, joyful, and sometimes just plain fired up,” says Reid via email. “It’s a platform where I can unpack the headlines, sit with brilliant thinkers, challenge power, and also just vibe with the culture. ‘The Joy Reid Show’ is where real conversations happen — without the limits of traditional TV. I’m excited to go deeper, laugh louder, and speak more freely than ever before.”

MSNBC isn’t the only mainstream outlet contending with well-known personalities venturing out on their own. CNN has seen Don Lemon and Jim Acosta take to digital following their exits from the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed network. Chuck Todd, the former NBC News politics guru and a former moderator of its “Meet The Press,” took his “Chuck Toddcast” with him and has launched a new Sunday-night program on an upstart outlet called Noosphere. Mehdi Hasan, a fiery orator who once held forth on weekends for MSNBC, started his own digital outlet, Zeteo. Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who reached millions each night via the primetime schedule of Fox News Channel, have each found new audiences via streaming and digital outlets.

To be sure, the traditional TV networks still tend to command larger simultaneous crowds — a facet that remains critical for winning ad dollars and distribution revenue. But in a media world where the barriers to entry are more easily surmounted, people with a strong following or fan base can command a sliver all their own that may no longer go to the mainstream outlet for a fix. As more popular personalities migrate, those numbers just might add up.

There’s a growing sense the traditional media companies are mindful of the exodus. Fox Corp. in February acquired Red Seat Ventures, a production company that helps manage business concerns for independent media outlets, including those launched by Kelly, Carlson and another former Fox News host, Bill O’Reilly.

Reid plans to devote podcasts on Mondays and Wednesdays to analysis, commentary and interviews with newsmakers. On Fridays, she will go “freestyle,” with an interactive segment during which she answers questions from viewers and guests. She plans to bring subscribers from her Substack, which number more than 160,000, into the mix and expand the program to five days a week later in the year. The show is produced by Reid’s own company, Image Lab Media Group, which she co-founded wit her husband, Jason Reid, a former editor at Discovery Networks. The company also has plans for documentaries in the works.