Joe Scarborough Extends Contract with MSNBC

While it would be premature to declare Mr. Scarborough's show, "Morning Joe," an unqualified success—it still lags its competition on Fox News Channel and CNN—the show drew an estimated 360,000 viewers each morning during the recently concluded May sweeps rating period, which is about what "Imus in the Morning" was attracting in the weeks before its host's firing.

More important, perhaps, the three hours of hard-core political chat (often laced with humor) that Mr. Scarborough and his co-hosts, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, put on each day is unlike anything else on morning television. Little wonder that every major presidential candidate has made at least one stop at Mr. Scarborough's desk since fall - including Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose husband Mr. Scarborough voted to impeach - and that throughout the broadcast Mr. Scarborough's Blackberry continuously vibrates with e-mail messages from the candidates' surrogates. Many of the messages are seeking corrections, or rebuttals, and most are immediately read aloud on the air.