Five years after retiring from MSNBC, Chris Matthews is bringing by his Hardball show for a weekly program on Substack.
Matthews worked in cable news from 1994 until 2020 across a variety of channels, including most notably at MSNBC, before abruptly retiring in 2020 after complaints about the way he treated staffers on his program.
He says now is the right time to revive the brand and jump back into the media ecosystem. This time, however, he’ll do it as an independent content creator.
“For twenty-some years, I asked tough questions and got a good number of surprising answers,” Matthews wrote in his debut post.. “Now, I’m about to do it again on Substack, an independent way to ask questions and give you the answers.”
Matthews said he plans to debut his show on Monday, April 21st. He said he’ll release new videos weekly on Mondays at Noon ET.
The former MSNBC host joins a growing list of former television news stalwarts shifting to an independent model. Chris Matthews will join the likes of Jim Acosta, Dan Rather, Jen Rubin, Joy Reid, Mehdi Hasan, Tara Palmeri, and Don Lemon who are all working independently on the platform as a way to remain at the forefront of the news media ecosystem.
The move from Matthews comes as Substack has invested heavily in video content as a way for independent creators to monetize their followings. The platform recently shared that it has eclipsed more than 5 million paying subscribers on a variety of independent endeavors.
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