On Monday, MSNBC announced that it had found a replacement for Rachel Maddow Tuesday through Friday as the host shifts away from daily news coverage. Alex Wagner will take over as regular host for the 9 pm time slot, bringing stability to the primetime lineup.
A rotation of anchors will remain as fill-in hosts for the 9 pm slot until Wagner’s program debuts on August 16, with Maddow holding forth on Monday evenings.
“I’m honored to be anchoring a key hour of television in such a critical time for American democracy,” Wagner said in a statement relayed by Variety. “In many ways, the stakes have never been higher, and there’s no better place to explore this moment than MSNBC. I’m thrilled to be coming home.”
Furthermore, it seems that MSNBC might be taking a page out of CNN’s playbook for this time slot. New boss Chris Licht isn’t putting importance on ratings, more so wanting to be a credible news source, which is what MSNBC’s Rashida Jones is striving for with Wagner at the helm.
“The ratings are not the top metric for me,” Jones said. “Are we adding something to the conversation? Are we bringing a deeper understanding?”
“Are people coming to us to cut through the noise and the rhetoric and understand what is happening? With any new show coming out of the gate, just using ratings as a measure is unfortunate.”
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
