The long-anticipated relaunch of MSNBC as a straightforward news network and extension of the NBC News brand will begin in earnest over the next few weeks.
On Thursday, MSNBC president Phil Griffin announced that “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd’s new weeknight show will begin airing on September 28. The show will be called “Meet the Press Daily,” an extension of Todd’s Sunday morning NBC program, and will be televised on the same set as the flagship program.
Griffin also announced that NBC News national correspondent Kate Snow will assume afternoon hosting duties for MSNBC, anchoring coverage from 3-5 p.m. every day. The announcement comes amid Snow’s promotion to anchor of the Sunday edition of NBC’s “Nightly News.”
And, as previously reported, Brian Williams, fresh off a six month suspension, will begin his new role as breaking news anchor on MSNBC on September 22, the day Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive in the United States.
The changes, long anticipated, are the clearest sign of the NBC News/MSNBC Chairman Andrew Lack’s intent to ramp up the integration between the network’s news division and its cable news arm. Since July, Lack has cancelled three of MSNBC’s most opinionated daytime shows and moved the outspoken host Al Sharpton to weekends.
The move to refashion MSNBC as a straight-forward news offering has not yet extended to primetime, where liberal hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell are likely to remain. MSNBC insiders like to refer to these shows as the network’s “opinion pages.”
Griffin also announced on Thursday that Pat Burkey will take over as executive producer of MSNBC’s afternoon news coverage. Burkey comes to the cable news channel from “NBC Nightly News,” where he worked with former anchor Brian Williams. In his memo, Griffin said that Burkey had “an incredible run at Nightly — leading the flagship broadcast through four straight years as number one in all categories in a very competitive field.”