Hardball is back.
Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews is rebooting the cable news show, which chronicled the world of politics across three networks for some 26 years from 1994 until 2020.
While the show debuted on the now-defunct America’s Talking channel, it moved to CNBC and then MSNBC, where it became a staple of that channel’s evening lineup.
Now, he says he is reviving the show on Substack, teasing new episodes on Mondays at noon, and adding that “the pitch is faster.”
“For twenty-some years, I asked tough questions and got a good number of surprising answers,” Matthews said in his intro post. “Now, I’m about to do it again on Substack, an independent way to ask questions and give you the answers.”
Substack has been leaning into video-first creators on its platform in recent months, with many TV news veterans among those eager to launch their own shows. Substack said last month that it now had more than five million paid subscriptions.
“There’s been a large, big start of the year because of the political volatility. So there’s a bunch of people looking to make sense of what’s going on. There’s a bunch of either anti-Trump sentiment or pro-Trump sentiment that is driving people to look for new voices, and a bit of a shake-up from mainstream media institutions that are not doing as well as they once were,” Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said. “That’s across TV, like Jim Acosta leaving CNN, Joy Reid leaving MSNBC, Jen Rubin leaving The Washington Post, Paul Krugman leaving The New York Times. And all of this has accelerated growth that was already happening, that’s probably brought forward that 5 million milestone a bit earlier than it would have otherwise.”
Former MSNBC hosts Mehdi Hasan and Reid, the former CNN anchor Acosta, and others have all launched on the platform, and Matthews appears poised to join them. That said, while the others launched their Substacks shortly after exiting linear TV, Matthews is re-joining the fray after years on the sidelines.
Matthews retired from Hardball and MSNBC in March 2020, after facing some complaints about how he spoke to some guests and staff, complaints that he referenced in his exit.
“After a conversation with MSNBC, I decided tonight will be my last Hardball, so let me tell you why. The younger generation is out there ready to take the reins. We see them in politics, in the media, in fighting for the causes. They have improved the workplace. We’re talking about better standards than we grew up with — fair standards,” Matthews said. “Compliments on a women’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were ok were never ok. Not then and certainly not today. And for making such comments in the past, I’m sorry.”
