CNN
—
Lester Holt, the trusted face of “NBC Nightly Information” for the previous decade, is stepping down from the newscast this summer time.
Holt will proceed to host “Dateline NBC,” the community’s prime time newsmagazine.
“Fairly merely, Lester is the beating coronary heart of this information group,” NBC Information govt vice chairman of programming Janelle Rodriguez stated in an inner memo on Monday. “He’s earned deep respect and reverence from our newsroom, business colleagues and, most significantly, viewers.”
When Holt was elevated to the job in 2015, he was the primary African-American solo anchor of a weekday community nightly newscast.
Whereas broadcast TV audiences have declined in recent times, the nightly newscasts on NBC, ABC and CBS can nonetheless draw a mixed 20 million viewers on a very good evening.
ABC’s “World Information Tonight,” led by David Muir, who has been within the chair since 2014, averaged 7.6 million viewers within the fourth quarter of final yr. Holt’s “Nightly Information” averaged 6.1 million viewers.
The “CBS Night Information,” which averaged 4.5 million viewers, not too long ago went via its personal anchor transition, with Norah O’Donnell departing the newscast and two anchors, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, taking the helm.
NBC didn’t instantly title Holt’s successor, however Tom Llamas – who anchors the community’s nightly streaming newscast, “High Story,” and continuously fills in for Holt – is in line for the publish.
Monday’s announcement indicated that Holt had signed a brand new long-term contract to stay with the community, however because the chief of 1 program as an alternative of two.
In a memo to staffers, Holt stated “I’m excited to report I might be persevering with as anchor of Dateline NBC, however for the primary time in a fulltime capability whereby I might be increasing my footprint on the published and crafting Dateline hours on topics I care deeply about.”
