MSNBC star bursts into tears after being forced to say goodbye live on air after network axing
MSNBC revamp victim Katie Phang cried on the air Saturday - during her show's second-to-last episode.
The Katie Phang Show was one of several casualties brought on by a lineup shift implemented by new network boss Rebecca Kutler a couple months ago - with Joy Reid being another.
During a conversation with Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett on one of her final broadcasts before her show is cancelled, Phang, 49, couldn't help but bring this reality up.
'This is the second to last episode of the show. Congresswoman, I wanted to thank you for always getting up early and delivering it,' Phang began, after evoking her race following her show's cancellation in February.
'But I also want to say thank you for your continuing support for democracy,'
'It's definitely something that you have made your brand, and it's integrity that you're bringing,' she continued.
'I'm grateful for you, always,' she finished. The sentiment saw the Texas rep start to cry herself, after which she managed to muster, 'We'll miss you.'
At this point, Phang began to cry herself, as she and others like Jonathan Capehart and Ayman Mohyeldin say goodbye to their programs as part of a strategic overhaul from higher-ups.
'Oh! You're gonna have me crying at the beginning of a show! Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, you haven't seen the last of me,' Phang finished, visibly choked up.
'Thank you for being here and getting us started today. I always appreciate you.'
The Asian American host's weekly show had filmed in Miami - a base now being abandoned as the network's corporate owner Comcast prepares to spin off most of its cable networks into a separate publicly traded company by November.
Amid the change, MSNBC will consolidate production operations to New York and Washington, DC, and Phang will stay on at MSNBC as a legal correspondent.
Capehart and Mohyeldin will also fill different roles on the network as well, with news shows being built around them.
The same could not be said for Phang, who, like Reid, twisted the identity-politics knife while lamenting her situation after seeing her show pulled by her bosses.
'I was proud to platform more AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) voices than any other cable show ever,' Phang wrote in a pointed post to Instagram in February. 'Representation matters,' she concluded.
'I went hard on so many issues,' Reid complained separately, while weeping through her remarks on a Zoom call to supporters.
'Whether it was the Black Lives Matter, issues of a young baby or a mom or dad that was killed or when we opened up people's eyes to the fact that Asian Americans were being targeted, and not just Black folks.
'My show had value,' she insisted.
Phang, meanwhile, is still the network's legal correspondent, after serving as its legal analyst for NBCUniversal since 2017. Her show's final episode airs Saturday.
As for MSNBC, the picture has gone from bad to worse. In February 2021, MSNBC averaged a total of 1.4 million total viewers every hour throughout the entire day and an average of 2.9 million total viewers during only primetime hours.
Today, those numbers have dwindled down to just roughly 600,000 and 1 million total viewers, respectively - a more than 50 percent decline on both ends.
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