Beyond Joy Reid: MSNBC makes major schedule changes as it prepares for NBC News split
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Big changes are afoot at MSNBC.
The progressive news network canceled several shows and will expand anchor shifts as it prepares for life after its upcoming split from NBC News.
The Comcast Corp.-owned channel on Monday confirmed the departure of host Joy Reid, who will be replaced by the trio of Michael Steele, Simone Sanders-Townsend and Alicia Menendez, and announced a new program lineup that will give former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki a regular prime-time slot.
The changes are set to occur in late April. They arrive ahead of the plan to spin MSNBC off into a new company with other Comcast cable networks, including CNBC, Golf Channel and USA Network.
The move is meant to remove the slow-growth units from Comcast as the larger company focuses more on its streaming business. The new company will be looking for acquisitions.
The plan means MSNBC and NBC News — which have been intertwined since the cable network was founded in 1996 — will operate separately.
Among the announcements made by MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler is that the channel will have its own Washington news bureau. MSNBC also will have its own studios in New York outside of NBC headquarters in Rockefeller Center.
NBC News is undergoing changes as well, with anchor Lester Holt announcing Monday he will leave “NBC Nightly News” this summer. Holt will remain with NBC News as anchor of “Dateline.” No successor for “NBC Nightly News” has been named but NBC News Now anchor Tom Llamas is considered the leading candidate.
Psaki will anchor the 9 p.m. Eastern hour Tuesday through Friday starting in late April. “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which is airing nightly for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, will go back to the weekly frequency that started in 2022.
Psaki, who currently has programs on Sunday and Monday, replaces Alex Wagner, who will remain with the network as a senior political analyst.
Reid’s 7 p.m. Eastern slot will be filled by Steele, Sanders-Townsend and Menendez, currently the co-hosts of MSNBC’s “The Weekend.” MSNBC has yet to reveal the new name for the program.
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Steele is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and an MSNBC regular for more than a decade. Sanders-Townsend was a strategist for former President Biden during his time as vice president. Menendez is a political commentator and daughter of Robert Menendez, the former U.S. senator from New Jersey who was recently convicted in a corruption trial.
“The Weekend” will have a new set of hosts and appear in morning and evening editions. Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart will anchor in the morning, while Ayman Mohyeldin will helm the evening program.
The weekend shows currently hosted by Capehart and Mohyeldin will end. Ali Velshi’s weekend show will be expanded from two to three hours.
The Saturday program hosted by legal analyst Katie Phang also is ending. Phang will remain with MSNBC as a legal analyst.
Jose Diaz-Balart, who is employed by NBC News and Telemundo, will end his daytime news program. Ana Cabrera will expand her shift to 10 a.m. to noon Eastern, followed by Chris Jansing from noon to 2 p.m. and Katy Tur from 2 to 4 p.m.
Diaz-Balart will continue as Saturday anchor of “NBC Nightly News.”
Reid, who has been with MSNBC since 2014, will leave the network despite having recently signed a new contract. MSNBC offered no explanation for her departure, although it was widely known that Comcast executives were uncomfortable with some of her harsh commentary about the Trump administration and its supporters.
Mark Lazarus, who presided over NBC Sports and NBCUniversal’s networks business for about a decade, is leading the new spinoff company as chief executive.
While Reid was considered the most politically left-leaning of MSNBC’s personalities, her departure is not seen as a change of direction for the network, which will continue to cater to progressive viewers, according to one executive familiar with its future plans who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Reid was in tears in a video posted Monday on X, in which she thanked viewers. “My show had value,” she said.
She also defended her criticism of Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas. “We as an American people have a right to object to little babies being bombed,” she said. “Where I come down on that is — I am not sorry.”
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