Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show is going weekly starting in May
By Brian Stelter, CNN Business
Starting in May, MSNBC’s highest-rated star Rachel Maddow will be hosting her 9 p.m. Eastern show just one day a week — on Mondays — while she pivots to other projects for parent company NBCUniversal.
The new schedule has an end-of-an-era feel for MSNBC, since so much of the channel has been built around Maddow for more than a decade.
CNN reported last August, when Maddow signed a new multi-year deal, that she planned to shift from daily to weekly programs.
Sources said she would be moving to more of a weekly format in 2022 — but MSNBC and Maddow did not confirm it at the time.
Then, in January, Maddow announced a “hiatus” from her prime time show so that she could work on other projects, like podcasts and potential TV dramas.
This tracked with the portrayal of her new contract back in August: A production arrangement across NBC, like a news business version of the entertainment showrunner deals that have proliferated across Hollywood.
Maddow returned from her hiatus on Monday night and told viewers about the new schedule, which she said would provide “more time to work on some of this other stuff that I’ve got cooking for MSNBC and NBC.”
She said she would host Monday through Thursday nights for the remainder of April, then shift to once a week in May.
She also told viewers that she will return for “big news events” like the lead-up to elections.
During the hiatus, MSNBC continued to call the 9 p.m. hour “The Rachel Maddow Show” while substitutes like Ali Velshi hosted.
But starting in May, the hour will be called “MSNBC Prime” on the nights Maddow is not there, an MSNBC spokesperson said.
The network will not be naming a four-nights-a-week replacement for Maddow right away: The 9 p.m. hour will have a rotation of hosts on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights, the spokesperson said.
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