Hoping that progressives will be willing to open their wallets for content during an election year, MSNBC has launched a new subscription podcast channel. Dubbed MSNBC Premium, the channel will offer ad-free access to the left-leaning network’s content.
“We’re meeting consumers where they are and reaching more of them than ever before,” Senior VP of Content Strategy Rebecca Kutler told TheWrap. “While we continue to invest in linear programming, MSNBC has built a cohesive environment where hosts and programs extend beyond cable and appear across the MSNBC portfolio, creating an expansive MSNBC ecosystem for our audience.”
MSNBC says it had more than 190 million total downloads last year, with shows like Ultra and Bag Man, two shows produced by the network’s top star, Rachel Maddow. Other podcasts that will be part of MSNBC Premium include Chris Hayes’ Why Is This Happening?, Deja News, Into America, and Prosecuting Donald Trump – which reportedly has had more than a million downloads per month as the former President went on trial.
“MSNBC Premium is a natural extension of that commitment to create and deliver top-quality breaking news and deep-dive perspectives wherever consumers get their news,” Kutler said in a statement to The Wrap. “MSNBC has built the most engaged audience in all of television. That engagement has translated to MSNBC’s non-linear investments across live events, social, digital and now audio products.”
MSNBC Premium will reportedly cost $2.99 per month and $29.99 per year on Apple Podcasts. The network says all its shows will remain available across all major podcast apps.
To help promote the new subscription service, MSNBC says the Maddow-hosted Ultra will release its second season beginning June 10. It tells an all-but-forgotten true story of an ascendant American demagogue and the frayed line between violent extremism and mainstream politics. There’s an international manhunt for an American traitor, a spy inside the U.S. Army’s Nazi war crimes prosecutions, and a bizarre – and successful – foreign influence operation inside Congress.
“Demagogues are not a new thing in our country, nor are their extreme, even violent, anti-democratic tactics,” Maddow said in a statement to Variety. “Season two of Ultra is a story about mostly forgotten American heroes who knew the risks to themselves if they took on these forces, but also the risk to the country if they didn’t.”
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