Why Did Ratings for 'The View' Soar After the Election But Sink on MSNBC?

I’m curious to explore this question because I’m not entirely clear on it myself. I understand, however, why MSNBC (and CNN) saw their ratings nosedive after the election. MSNBC’s primetime audience dropped by over 50 percent compared to the same period the previous year, averaging only 600,000 viewers in the days following the election, despite hitting over 6 million on election night.

This drop-off makes sense. Democrats, still reeling, had no appetite for postmortems, especially from a network that had likely bolstered their hopes in the lead-up to election day. The last thing most people wanted was to hear from “experts” whose predictions had proved wrong. Right now, liberal punditry feels disconnected from the alternate reality spun by right-wing media, a distortion that seems to be hardening into a collective reality where Fox News morphs from government propaganda into the actual government.

There’s also sheer exhaustion. The human psyche isn’t designed to endure this level of sustained existential stress. For many, the natural reaction has been to step away, to check out. Even thinking about regrouping feels unrealistic. Just like no one goes job hunting the day after being fired, we need a period of recovery—time for pizza, pajamas, and low-stakes entertainment—to process and recharge.

But how, then, does that explain why The View scored its highest ratings in a decade the day after the election? With over 4.4 million viewers tuning in, the show’s weekly average soared to 3 million, leaving its competitors like the Today show and The Talk far behind.

Why? Although I didn’t watch the episode, I suspect The View offered something different—less about blame and analysis and more about shared experience and empathy. The mainstream media’s rush to perform an election autopsy felt like a tone-deaf reminder of news as a commercial enterprise, doing exactly what it always does, even when this wasn’t a typical election.

In contrast, The View seemed to pause, stepping in as America’s support group. The panel — Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro, Joy Behar, and Alyssa Farah Griffin — likely voiced the fears and concerns that so many were grappling with, offering a space to process rather than dissect, to connect rather than assign fault. They allowed for the shared experience before diving into analysis, making a necessary space for collective reflection.

In other words: No one wants to look at Kornacki’s maps again for a very long time.