Dear Tech Person at MSNBC.com,
There used to be a free podcast of The Rachel Maddow Show. I loved it. Pretty much every morning, as I ate breakfast, I would watch the previous evening’s broadcast, in its entirety and without commercials. I loved (and love) Rachel, her optimistic, forceful, and nerdy personality. Hearing her voice, even in dark times, made me hopeful. And it seemed as though she was surrounded by similarly warm, creative, and caring people: her producer put out witty, self-deprecating videos on the show’s website, and the overall vibe I got was of people determined to be ultra-professional as journalists while also staying true to their beliefs — and, importantly, acting as at least a bit of a counterweight to Fox News and other conservative organizations.
Then, a few months ago (I don’t remember exactly when), without any notice, the complete podcasts of Rachel’s show stopped happening; instead, there were free podcasts of excerpts from the show. But there was another option for those of us who don’t own TVs. (My main reason is that whenever I’ve had a TV, I’ve watched sports constantly — you know, like, too much. I also didn’t want my son growing up in a household where the TV was always running — the idea just really depressed me.) We could go to MSNBC’s website and watch the full show there, streaming. So I tried doing that. But the website was extremely glitchy. There were commercials, but I could deal with that; what I couldn’t deal with was that, pretty much inevitably, one of the commercials would stall on my computer — and I couldn’t watch the rest of the show.
It wasn’t just me. The comments section on the site was filled with frustrated, sometimes even angry, words from viewers who were having the same problem. No one from TRMS, or the network, responded (that I saw). And there was nowhere else to turn. Yes, you could (and I did) click on “Help,” which eventually took me to a place where I could write an email to a nameless person at MSNBC.com (you?) — but when I clicked “Send” on that email, I got a message saying that MSNBC could not respond to each individual comment but appreciated getting my feedback (or something to that effect). So far, I haven’t heard back.
I wrote an email to Rachel’s email address, and didn’t hear back. I sent a Tweet to her (excellent) blogger, whose work I’d been enjoying for years; he didn’t get back to me. I kept trying to figure out a way to watch the whole Rachel show, kept failing, and — finally, sadly — gave up.
But I still had Chris Hayes’s show! I had been thrilled with his original, weekend program on MSNBC, and now I decided to make All In with Chris Hayes my go-to news program. At some point MSNBC had made it necessary for me to have a subscription to a cable service in order to watch the full, streaming programs. So I became friendly with someone who has such a subscription — and presto!, I could watch All In — all of it! (Though it seemed somewhat draconian to freeze out people who didn’t have such a subscription; after all, they’d still have to watch the ads, right?)
This went on for a while. Then, this past week — as the worst possible things were happening in the world, and also the best possible things — a picture of a key appeared over the screen where Chris’s show was supposed to stream: it said, “Please sign in.”
I had done this before, periodically. Every once in a while, the website told me to sign in using my cable-subscription info. But this time — starting this past week — when I clicked on the key, or on the words “Please sign in,” nothing happened. This was — and remains — the case on all the various browsers I have on my Mac. And again, this wasn’t just happening to me: other frustrated would-be viewers were leaving comments that they couldn’t sign on either.
As a last gasp, I sent a string of Tweets to the Chris Hayes show. I mentioned that I used to be an intern at the Nation magazine (with which Chris is connected), thinking this might possibly help. I sent a Tweet to a woman I used to hang out with at a very stuffy college many years ago, who is now a booking producer for All In.
Again, no response.
Tech Person at MSNBC.com, I ask you: Why do these websites suck so much? I believe you are owned by Comcast, which seems to be a really, really big company and ought to have lots of resources. A paranoid person (which I try not to be) might think that this might be some creepy way for the corporate ownership to mess with its progressive content-providers — I just really doubt that this is the case.
Tech Person at MSNBC.com, as well as the tech people at the Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes shows, I ask you: Why don’t you write back to a viewer who has long loved your programs and cannot now access them? While I wouldn’t venture a guess as to the politics of MSNBC’s IT person (or people), I imagine that the folks who work at the shows themselves are progressive people who care passionately about disseminating under-covered news stories that corporate America often doesn’t see fit to mention; I imagine that they really, really want their work to be seen and heard.
I know there are more important things in the world — many of them — than someone’s inability to watch these shows online; it’s because I want to keep up on those things that this matters to me so much. I care so much that I have taken to writing this open letter on my own blog, which I’m pretty sure not even my mom reads. Still, I’m not giving up — not completely. In this often dazzling, sometimes perplexing age of hyper-communication, I choose to keep lit a tiny pilot light of hope that it will somehow be possible to communicate with the person in charge of these websites at MSNBC.com, and that these problems will be corrected.
Also, let me wish you a happy Independence Day weekend — and Mom, if you are reading this, I love you.
Take care,
Josh
Hey Josh,
Just wanted to say, I also am a cord cutter, and a fan of Maddow. I now listen to the audio podcast, which is the complete 43 minutes. It is not the same as the video, I catch the video clips if I can, that said, the audio provides the full uninterrupted experience. I wrote a couple of tweets to MSNBC saying I would gladly pay for the video podcast (no response).
Other than reading Steve Benen’s blog and the Twitter panes, I gave up using the website–it is not really interactive. If they wanted to, they could make it work better. Good luck with your quest.
I used to be able to post on articles on the MSN website. For the past several days I haven’t been able to. I feel like they are censoring their site. Hard to figure out since I usually comment on mundane things like the real estate and living sections. What could be controversial about that?
sigh….
I am sooooo much in agreement with you on this!!! WTF!!! I am a cord cutter and I have found it almost impossible to view MSNBC. I’ve been using my brother’s comcast account to watch online. But to be honest, the site even crashes with that streaming. So, the issue is pretty much about crappy streaming overall!!! in 2015, youd think theyd have this resolved.
Horrible hanging script, it seems to be caused mostly by the advertisements. Three weeks ago I could not login via dish at all for a couple of weeks. I wrote a tech letter to NBC feedback and finally a day later I could login.
There was a couple of days last week when there were no advertisements and I was able to watch all shows within a few hours! Shocking. Now it is back to hanging scripts led by the double/triple Katie Couric-Yahoo ads.
I just wonder if Comcast is just trying to choke this online stream out. They can not be deaf to all the problems they have had for the last couple of years.
This started happening a short time after Phil Griffith became head of MSNBC. He also fired all of the liberal day host.. and kept the horrible Morning Joe R/W show. Even made an ad toting about how right they were leaning..
Hence the problems started a the top.. They ARE NOT interested in ‘lefties’ like us.
September 2017 and it still sucks. Can’t stream worth a damn.
Yep, the worst thing just happened to me too, the key just appeared over the Maddow videos. Why now? I’ve been happily streaming in the kitchen, brushing my teeth, etc., filling in those little nooks in my day. I’m a teacher, I’ve got a kid, I go to bed early. Whether the issue is technical incompetence or censorship from a right leaning leader at MSNBC, not being able to stream Rachel’s videos makes me feel like I’m in a second world country. I’m sure they’re watching Rachel in Sweden, for instance.
yep.
we do all these things so we can come home at night to reboot our internet router, patch our computers, fight with streaming applications, consolidate our backups, clear off spam, reset notifications from annoying social media services that are designed to get us to click on their site once per day (at least), all so we can watch something as well done and intelligent as her show. In and of itself a depressing act. All based on TCP/IP that was originally designed for open communication between intelligent entities, now like minded others who obtained success as a minority in the mass media industry are forced to compete with intellectual property rights for ad sales volume like all the others we detest to such a point that we no longer watch TV, or listen to the radio.
I have sat here tonight trying to watch her show for over an hour, it keeps timing out and starting over, trying to play an ad it can’t find, so it gets part way through, then stops to find an advertisement that is not available it seems, looping endlessly.
As someone who works in tech for the last 20 years, I get into incidents and am held accountable for the failure of corporate systems. The very last thing I want to do is come home to fight crappy, privacy invasive web services that fail to deliver.
Nicely written, and the photo you have cracks me up too. Says it all I think. Hang in there buddy.
CTC
We live on a boat in Alaska and have no access to TV. We have an eccellent internet provider but NBC and MSNBC, ONLY THEM, stream so poorly it can hardly be watched…I can get most of it on youtube but often not complete. WTF?? Hulu a day late…This is one of the few networks that speak our truth to power and we are really pissed that COMCAST has chosen to foul streaming of their content.
I haven’t had a tv for 10 years and the only shows I’m interested in are on MSNBC where people have had an education and do research. I have relied on the goodness of people who upload shows on youtube but msnbc is so determined to make us liberals pay when we don’t have the extra money that even those shows are hard to get.
WHY? do the freakinfox lovers get it free when we need to have more access to intelligent reporting not less?!! MSNBC, are you listening?
Worst ever. Can’t stream at all. It buffers. stops…starts over and then stops and starts again. My favorites are the ones where the commercials are perfect and then the video just won’t play. They do really good commercials. There are no problems with the commericals.
This app has been hanging since I first started using it a few months ago, but it is just getting worse. It is virtually unusable. I’m on an iPhone 6S. I am at the latest version. My phone is set to allow roaming on cellular eventhough I’m mostly on WiFi. I have changed the setting in the app to allow it to use cellular service. I’ve power cycled my phone. I’ve deleated and redownloaded the app. Nothing works. I have also sent an email to their contact email for technical problems, but have heard nothing back.
I’m about to give up watching MSNBC altogether, which is a shame because I really love what Rachel and Chris have to say.
Too bad.
The streaming is much more dependable on Morning Joe than on MSNBC which doesn’t make sense since the Morning Joe stories always show up on MSNBC but with lousy streaming services that constantly stop every 5 seconds, making it impossible to listen to.
The livestream of MSNBC is almost unwatchable. Buffers, hangs up, restarts every 10-15 seconds. The commercials work just fine.
WHY ON EARTH can’t (or won’t) MSNBC fix this?
Aug, 2018 and it’s the same as it ever was. The mobile site is terrible, standard website is terrible, and their contact form still responds with the same ridiculous message saying, “we only respond to some of you” (any of us?). What’s odd is that each person’s site – Maddow, Hayes etc – have their own site or own subsection of it that have different bugs between them. This month Rachel’s show always breaks the fullscreen when going to, or out of, commercials, so I have to keep full screening it after every commercial which I suppose isn’t terrible, but it was a regression. They fixed other bugs, now there’s this bug. It’s like every couple months, there are just shifting bugs.
One of these days I’m going to check on their JS and see what they’re running, but it’s just terrible that such good programs are so crappy online.
It really seems like they’re just dealing with spaghetti code and should probably just scrap it start fresh if possible, or devote the damn resources to fix it, because you’re right, they have the money.
I’m pleased to read that I’m not alone regarding the many negative outcomes with trying to watch MSNBC’s Maddow and Hayes. Apparently, they are common, widespread and are still continuing for far too long.
The streaming MSNBC experience is a labyrinth of inevitable negative issues. A continuum that starts with can’t sign in because unable to verify your cable provider, streaming buffering slow downs, complete stops, no audio, pixel distortions-all mentioned in the previous posts.
I too want to cut the cord as I ONLY want to watch MSNBC’s Maddow and Hayes primarily. The other hosts are informative and interesting as well. But, Maddow’s research team is superlative, as well as, her historical contextualization which provides a more rich and full understanding of the big picture of the political machinations and it’s puzzle.
Pretty sad when you want only one go to station and a few go to shows and cannot access due to the same lame persistent issues and problems for years.
But, there’s some small comfort in commiserating with others.
Still tons of problems and now listen live says not available in my area?? Ive been using it daily for years
October 2018…..still a problem. Why the f*ck can’t MSNBC fix this? CNN has a stable and reliable streaming platform.
I’m having the same problems with buffering/hanging up/audio not syncing with video, etc. In addition, and all of the sudden, when I sign in from my computer to my cable account (which I’ll be cutting off next week — finally), the screen says that it’s “Verifying” and then goes right back to the Sign In message. It’s not a problem with cable, so I’m clueless. Any ideas?
I had the exact same problem a few months ago, Keltia!
I finally reached a high-up tech person at DirecTV (which is how I get my TV programs), who told me that it was almost certainly a problem at MSNBC’s end. He said that, as various things change, the carrier (in this case, DirecTV) and the channel (in this case, MSNBC) have to work together to be sure that one site is still “talking” to the other. (Of course, I never got a response from MSNBC.)
After about a month, someone must have done something, because the verifying/sign in stuff started to work again.
So … have hope?
Take care,
Josh
Loophole found december 2019
Go incognito and you can sign in through the broken key.
Hello Josh Kornbluth,
I came across this, now going-on 5-year-old post… Still relevant.
I was googling around, after figuring out how to use my ‘Dish’ account to watch MSNBC with my AppleTV; since my Dish receiver is on the fritz.
Good news; It is working.
Bad news; The audio through the AppleTV sounds barely a notch better than the worst Zoom meeting :-/
We were accustomed to fairly decent sound quality, through regular, live satellite delivery… Now, Rachel and Chris sound like they are shouting and every breath is magnified due to some unfortunate compression and bandwidth limiting they must be using, no doubt to cram their content into as narrow a bitstream as they can; to save $$$….
I don’t understand the cable news racket anyway. Used to be that you paid a premium for cable channels so that you didn’t need to watch advertising… Now the channels double dip. You pay to see them and they still make you watch as many commercials as any antenna-based local network affiliates… Gotta love capitalism
I AM paying for MSNBC’s show. I bought my streaming service precisely because it offered MSNBC. I watch all the evening shows, usually, and intermittently during the day. IT’S THE ONLY CHANNEL I WATCH. Recently, the sound synching has changed. After having it on for a while, the words are about a second or so delayed from the screen (the mouths!). It’s very annoying and does not happen on other channels, when I test them. I’m using YouTubeTV, so good luck finding support there, or on MSNBC. Who will FIX this???
OMG – thank you! Watching MSNBC Live online is the most frustrating process ever. I think they hired the tech person from AOL
October 2020 and it’s still a problem! I watch on a Roku in the NBC Channel. MSNBC live stream constantly freezes, buffers, restarts and/or cuts out… why can’t this be fixed yet??!!!
It is so bad we might just have to give up the fine programming because of their technical incompetence
I pay for FIOS from Verizon which includes MSNBC. I try to live stream it my Mac. The show has commercials. The site adds commercials and the show hangs every few minutes . After a refresh of the browser, you get another stream only commercial and lose portions of this show. This is such a poorly executed streaming service it hurts the credibility of the news organization as compared to more technically professional ones such as CNN. MSNBC, please up your brand and fix this issue please. Become a Varsity streaming service. Right now you’re intramural.
Let me add a 2021 confirmation that MSNBC still doesn’t stream — regardless of browser or operation system. The cable subscription remains but it adds so many commercials that you clearly miss much of the shows. I counted 8 commercials this morning – May 12, 2021. Then the stream hung (in Firefox on a Mac over Comcast) and when it restarted, I got 6 commercials… then Morning Joe started in the middle of segment… Went to music instead.
Few things:
1. Comcast owns the entire stack of this stream except for the browser software. They own the network, the show, the cable infrastructure and the contracts between various interests — all contributing to terrible streaming. America is gone. It has been for a long long time. The nail will be in the coffin in 2022.
The best way to listen to MSNBC is via SiriusXM radio. Every time I have problems with streaming I immediately turn on SiriusXM and everything is fine.
Same “O”.
I was discussing this with a relative, who worked there till thay found a new job.
This relative said it’s like the right-wing is working
behind the the scenes to kill MSNBC. A lot of the folks there think this new headshead is a worshiper of his daily bowl of trump
Dump!
Seven years later and their internet tech still seriously sucks. I will stop reading it. I don’t need the annoyance.
Well, after all these negative comments about streaming problems with MSNBC production, I am now wondering (11/4/2022) why the production problems are pretty darn bad when trying to watch any programs on MSNBC today, yesterday and for the past 4 years or more.
This is my go-to for political answers to
Americas political problems with the GOP. Before Trump we were Republicans, voting that way and listening to Foxnews religiously but Trump ended that immediately.
But MSNBC’s production problems are leaving a bad taste in our mouths for trying to get anything from these wonderful programs from the wonderful Rachel Maddow to Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell. Please just start over with a knowledgeable and hard working Production Staff that is more professional in the near future. I know they are out there. Hire them and let’s be the best in the business. Trying to stay loyal through our local Cable companies. Thank you kindly for listening .