Zerlina Maxwell and Ayman Mohyeldin lose MSNBC streaming shows on Peacock

There's a streaming shakeup on MSNBC.

MSNBC is canceling two of its streaming programs on Peacock as the NBCUniversal-backed outlet monitors programming performance amid a new battle for broadband consumers.

Zerlina Maxwell and Ayman Mohyeldin will both lose their Peacock programs, according to a network spokesperson. Maxwell, who has worked with MSNBC since 2018 as an analyst and whose Peacock program was among MSNBC's first streaming offerings, will make his final Peacock program on September 15. Its staff was informed of the move on Wednesday by MSNBC President Rashida Jones, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Executives would like Maxwell, a Democratic activist and former campaign aide to Hillary Clinton, to remain in an analyst role. Mohyeldin, who launched a program that airs weekends on MSNBC cable and airs one day a week on Peacock, will retain his linear duties on weekends. He will also replace presenters during MSNBC's weekday primetime schedule.

Both shows are among the first casualties of programming since MSNBC launched a streaming hub called "The Choice" on Peacock in October 2020. At the time, "The Choice" was billed as a place for original news and opinion programs. In March, MSNBC laid out a plan to make some of its best-known cable op-eds available to high-end customers of the Peacock streaming service, along with specials with top hosts including Rachel Maddow. , Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes, Trymaine Lee and others. .

Many media companies have launched new streaming counterparts for their well-known TV news operations, but they have also started to monitor these activities more as they find the task of attracting more subscribers has become difficult in a context of fierce competition. CNN invested millions under AT&T's control in CNN+, a subscription-based streaming hub that featured programs examining business, travel and lifestyle. Yet new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery scuttled it days after taking over, eager to use CNN to help build the foundation for other parts of its streaming portfolio.

Others succeed through more focused efforts. Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on an investor call Wednesday that Fox Nation, a subscription-based broadband service launched in 2018, saw subscriber numbers grow 80% in the last trimester. The executive did not specify the number of subscribers to the service.

Maxwell, who gained traction with both NBC News and MSNBC as well as hosting and programming duties at Sirius XM, had been hard at work on his Peacock program. The show featured only five minutes of commercials per hour and took viewers through segments that could last nearly 18 minutes. She launched the show while working remotely and delved into topics that included interviews with black farmers as well as a 9-year-old doing good things amid the pandemic. "We have time to work on it," she told Variety in a previous interview. "Streaming gives you space."

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