MSNBC To Cover Breaking News Daytime

MSNBC's selling points when it launched in 1996 was the power of NBC News on cable and an up-and-coming anchor named Brian Williams.

Nearly 20 years later, Williams will be at the forefront of an effort to make the channel a destination when news happens in daytime. NBC News on-air correspondents, a less frequent presence on MSNBC in recent years as the channel added more politically progressive talking heads, will play a larger role again.

NBC News and MSNBC Chairman Andy Lack cleared a path for the strategic shift last week with the cancellation of three daytime programs: "The Cycle," "Now With Alex Wagner" and "The Ed Show."

The move opens up the daytime hours for continuing breaking news coverage, where Williams will be at the helm. MSNBC will be the platform for the former "NBC Nightly News" anchor's reentry to TV news after he served a six-month suspension for false statements he made about his experience reporting on the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Brian Williams

The LA Times reports the move is aimed at making MSNBC competitive in the ratings after it fell well behind CNN among the audience of 25- to 54-year-old viewers that advertisers want to reach with news programming. In July, CNN more than doubled MSNBC's daytime audience of 48,000 viewers in the demographic and Fox News Channel more than tripled it.

Williams, who isn't likely to show up on the air until September, will be MSNBC's go-to anchor from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the East Coast. "Meet the Press" moderator and NBC News political director Chuck Todd will have a daily program at 5 p.m., giving him a higher profile during the presidential campaign.

The evening lineup of politically left-of-center hosts — the Rev. Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell — will remain intact for now, serving much as an op-ed page does in a newspaper. The ratings for those programs, with the exception of Hayes, are still competitive with CNN on some nights.

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