Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s ‘Morning Joe’ Soars in Ratings War, Doubles CNN’s Morning Audience

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s Morning Joe is soaring this year so far.

A press release from NBC stated, “In the first quarter of 2025, Morning Joe doubled CNN’s morning audience, securing its 40th consecutive quarterly win over CNN among total viewers and 12th consecutive quarterly win in the demo. MSNBC was also the most-watched cable network in Washington, D.C. across weekday mornings. In March, MSNBC also averaged three times as many viewers as CNN during the 6 a.m. hour.”

“During the first 10 weeks of the new administration, the Morning Joe audience grew by double digits (+18%) compared to pre-inauguration benchmarks,” the press release said.

“Plus, Morning Joe is one of MSNBC’s top performing Audio Showcasts in the first quarter of 2025, with 1.2 million average monthly downloads. The past two years, Morning Joe was the most listened to showcast across MSNBC,” the statement continued.

Morning Joe’s Joe and Mika's Banter Has ‘Gone From Adorable to Annoying’

Last month, MSNBC averaged three times as many viewers as CNN during the 6 a.m. hour, according to the network, as well as drawing 2.5 million unique viewers each morning.

Joe, 61, and Mika, 57, have cohosted Morning Joe since 2007 along with Sunday Today‘s Willie Geist. The couple, who got married in 2018, bring special guests onto the show each morning to debate major world topics.

After the news was shared, Joe shared his reaction in a post on X on Thursday, April 3.

“Congrats to the Morning Joe team!” he wrote. “Morning Joe averages TWICE as many viewers as CNN from 6-10am. More people have watched Morning Joe than CNN for 10 years straight. Morning Joe is the #1 show in DC for all of cable. Thanks for all you do. We are grateful!”

Joe did recently admit he was hoping to take the program into another direction – doing more celebrity interviews.

“For years, I have wanted us to push back and go more into the original concept of Morning Joe, which was like, yes, politics and foreign policy and the economy, but also music and film and Broadway,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in January, explaining that initially, a lot of the A-list celebrity content aired on Joe Scarborough Presents.

“I don’t want to have Christopher Nolan on at eight o’clock at night,” he said. “I want my Morning Joe family to be able to hear Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey Jr. and all the Oppenheimer people. I wanted that in the morning. So we moved it back to the morning, and we’ve just focused on it a lot more.”

The former politician and the Know Your Value founder have both learned a lot about their relationship after working together on television for so many years.

“Both of us practice a lot of patience and acceptance, and whether you’re together 24/7 or not, that’s key. Otherwise I’m incredibly blessed and lucky,” Mika told Woman’s World in an October 2024 interview. “It’s very hard, and I talk to young women about this, but we have so many opportunities, so please don’t forget the most important one in your life.”

The pair share a blended family, as Joe is a dad to kids Joey, Andrew, Kate and Jack Scarborough from his previous marriages. Mika is a mom to daughters Carlie and Emilie Hoffer, whom she shares with ex-husband Jim Hoffer.

“It can be to have a career and be successful and support your family and yourself,” she added. “It’s important to do that. But if your dreams are to have a family — and you don’t have to have those dreams — know that it’s okay to be spending a lot of time and effort on a good connection. If this is something that you want, it can be hard to find, but it can happen and you have much more time than you think. And remember to take love seriously.”