NEW YORK — The future of Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC talk show is in doubt after the host declared she would not appear this weekend in response to several weeks of its pre-emption by the network.
Harris-Perry, who is black, focuses on race, gender and politics on the discussion show, which she has hosted since 2012. The show, “Melissa Harris-Perry,” is regularly scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon EST on Saturdays and Sundays. It did not air in February.
“Our show was taken — without comment or discussion or notice — in the midst of an election season,” Harris-Perry said in an e-mail to her staff that was obtained by The New York Times on Friday and later posted on her Twitter page. She noted “a growing chorus of questions from our viewers about my notable absence from MSNBC coverage.”
MSNBC said the pre-emptions were the result of the network’s heavy coverage of the presidential election campaign, which has heated up with the onset of the primaries.
“In this exciting and unpredictable presidential primary season, many of our daytime programs have been temporarily upended by breaking political coverage, including MHP,” the network said in a statement, which characterized Perry’s response to her pre-emptions as “really surprising, confusing and disappointing.”
