Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal noted that CNN and Fox News' ratings have increased sharply during the Covid-19 crisis, while MSNBC's have increased little beyond their previous trajectory. While the Journal stopped short of speculating why this might be, the graph below shows that MSNBC has mentioned the pandemic far less than its two peers. While this doesn't count airtime devoted to interviews, press conferences and the like that are about the virus but don't mention it, the fact that CNN and Fox are so similar and MSNBC so different from them in total mentions suggests it has not focused so heavily on the outbreak that is of such interest to viewers at the moment.
The graph below breaks down the total percentage of their airtime this year devoted to mentions of the virus, showing that MSNBC has devoted a full 2% less of its daily airtime than the other two.
