MSNBC Can’t Make It’s Rent On Headquarters, Currently Looking For A Roommate

With Ed Schultz dragging MSNBC’s ratings into a deeper, darker black hole than they were before the network’s finances don’t seem to be very healthy. The fact that the network is looking to lease out parts of its headquarters so it can continue making rent is just more evidence in favor of that assumption.

NBC is currently exploring the possibility of leasing out part of its longtime headquarters in Washington D.C. to an outside organization, according to sources familiar with the situation.
One possible partner? American University.
The longtime home of NBC News, MSNBC, and WRC-TV Channel 4—NBC’s owned and operated station in D.C.—is located on Nebraska Avenue, a short walk from the university’s bucolic campus in Northwest Washington.
What American University would do with space in the building remains unclear. But the university’s School of Communication, which offers graduate and undergraduate degrees to hundreds of students, is currently undergoing a $20 million renovation that will eventually modernize and expand its journalism facilities. In the meantime, the school remains under construction.
If the two institutions strike an agreement, NBC is expected to maintain much of the ample space at its sprawling compound. And, presumably, bringing in a roomate would help NBC pay for some of the much-needed upgrades on a facility that predates HD technology by many, many decades.
Earlier this year, a number of employees at the bureau accepted buyout offers from NBC. As a result, the overall size of the staff working out of the D.C. offices has dwindled, freeing up even more room in a building that was never particularly cramped to begin with.

Clearly, MSNBC’s move left isn’t working out as well as they planned.