Media entrepreneur and legal expert Dan Abrams will stop hosting his one-hour NewsNation program in February.
The announcement was made at the end of Thursday’s broadcast, during which Abrams said he appreciated the three years he got to spend with the Nexstar Media Group-owned cable news upstart.
“Creating this one hour of television every night takes many hours each day. I take every word, every tease, every guest, every on-screen graphic personally — there is no such thing as mailing it in for any of us, including me,” Abrams said. “Three years after this…really kind of unexpected opportunity, I have reached the point where it is just impossible to keep devoting the time needed for this show while also running and growing my other businesses.”
Those other businesses include Mediaite, the news and political affairs recap website that is best known for reappropriating viral cable news clips, and his hosting duties for Reelz, where he fronts the live police procedural “On Patrol: Live.” Abrams is also the senior legal correspondent for ABC News, and hosts a show on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel.
Despite those other jobs, Abrams said he spent “far more time” on his NewsNation program “Than anything else — and, as hard as it is for me to admit, it’s just not practical to do this show all week.”
“So, this show will wind down in early February,” Abrams said.
His departure comes at a time when NewsNation’s audience is increasing: The channel’s prime-time viewership increased 33 percent from mid-November to mid-December in the key demographic of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 years old, according to Nielsen ratings. That group of viewers is coveted, because it is the most-attractive to cable news advertisers.
By comparison, MSNBC and CNN have seen their ratings shrink in the post-election period between mid-November and mid-December, with NewsNation’s viewers largely coming from MSNBC, according to The Desk’s analysis of overall and key demographic ratings for the channels.
Last year, NewsNation announced it had signed Abrams to a new multi-year contract that would keep his program on the network for a few more years, though the precise length of time was not specified. The decision to wind down his program in February comes in the second year of his contract. It was not clear from Abrams’ announcement if the decision to break the contract early was mutual.
“Dan Abrams Live” commanded a smaller share of NewsNation’s prime-time audience, though he benefitted from having former CNN host Chris Cuomo’s eponymous show as a lead in, allowing him to retain some of Cuomo’s audience in the following time slot. In 2022, the New York Post reported that Cuomo had approached NewsNation executives about switching time slots with Abrams, figuring the 9 p.m. Eastern Time block would be more beneficial from a ratings standpoint. A NewsNation spokesperson said the report was inaccurate, and Cuomo’s show remains in the 8 p.m. Eastern Time slot.
In addition to “Cuomo” and Dan Abrams Live, NewsNation’s prime-time line-up includes “Banfield,” hosted by former MSNBC correspondent and Court TV host Ashleigh Banfield. Initially described as an evolution of the talk format perfected by CNN’s Larry King, Banfield has since evolved into a one-hour program dedicated to sensationalistic coverage of true crime.
