“We have to be aware of it,” he said. “We’ll figure out how to deal with their aggression in our own way.”

The way will be consistent with the political brand — and that could be a risk.

“People are just sick of politics,” said one former senior network news producer, who asked not to be identified because of current dealings with another news organization. Mr. Griffin agreed that “dysfunction in Washington” has been a factor in MSNBC’s recent struggles.

MSNBC’s viewers may have especially grown tired of politics because the news has been mostly negative recently toward President Obama, whom MSNBC’s hosts have championed. As another senior producer for news programs at multiple networks put it, “People will watch MSG when the Knicks are hot, and not watch when they aren’t.”

Even Ms. Maddow’s ratings tumbled sharply in May, at least partly because the network’s new host at 8 p.m., Chris Hayes, has lost more than 30 percent of the audience in the hour before Ms. Maddow’s show. (Mr. Griffin, who defended the decision to bring in Mr. Hayes, said the show had been hurt by the discord in Washington, and vowed to stick with it after “some tweaking.”)

A broader question is whether MSNBC is being damaged by a perception that it is not really a news channel anymore. “MS has stopped doing news so you don’t really think of them when there is a breaking news story,” said a producer who has worked in both cable and broadcast news, who asked not to be identified because of continuing relationships with one of the networks.

Unlike CNN and Fox, MSNBC does not have a full roster of its own correspondents, still relying largely on reporters from NBC News like Chuck Todd and Pete Williams. It does not even have a White House correspondent.

“Fox News has an advantage in having its own correspondents, who don’t have to do double-duty,” said Judy Muller, a former network correspondent who now teaches at the University of Southern California.