Chris Hayes Secures Weekend Show on MSNBC

By Alex Weprin 

MSNBC announced Monday that Chris Hayes would finally be getting his own show, albeit early on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Hayes will host from 7-9 AM on Saturdays, and 8-10 AM on Sundays. As a result of the move, Alex Witt will now anchor from 9 AM to 12 PM on Saturdays, and 10 AM to 12 PM on Sundays.

MSNBC is slated to present a panel tomorrow at the Television Critics Association Summer press tour at the Beverly Hilton.

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“I’m tremendously excited to create something new at MSNBC,” said Hayes in a statement. “I think our position on weekend mornings is going to allow us to slow down the news cycle and look at the week’s news with a fresh perspective.”

More information in the release, after the jump.

CHRIS HAYES TO HOST MSNBC WEEKEND MORNING PROGRAM

ALEX WITT ANCHORS “WEEKENDS WITH ALEX WITT”

Hayes to Host Saturdays 7-9 a.m. and Sundays 8-10 a.m. ET

Alex Witt Anchors “Weekends with Alex Witt”
on Saturdays 9 a.m. – Noon and Sundays 10 a.m. – Noon ET

New Weekend Line-up To Debut on September 17

NEW YORK – August 1, 2011 – MSNBC contributor Chris Hayes has been added to the network’s weekend lineup as the host of a new weekend morning show. The program, with a focus on politics, will be live on Saturdays from 7:00 – 9:00 a.m. ET and Sundays from 8:00 – 10:00 a.m. ET starting September 17. The announcement was made today by MSNBC President Phil Griffin. Hayes, a frequent substitute host for “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” will continue as an MSNBC contributor and will remain part of The Nation as Editor-at-Large.

“Chris is a thoughtful analyst and one of the smartest journalists out there,” said Griffin. “As we head into election season, there is no better time to amp up our weekend political coverage.”

“I’m tremendously excited to create something new at MSNBC,” said Hayes. “I think our position on weekend mornings is going to allow us to slow down the news cycle and look at the week’s news with a fresh perspective.”

“Weekends with Alex Witt,” anchored by Alex Witt, will follow Chris Hayes on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. – Noon ET and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to Noon ET. Witt joined MSNBC in 1999 and currently anchors MSNBC Weekends.

“Alex Witt has been a standout and critical to our overall success,” said Griffin. “I’m thrilled that she’s going to continue in a key role on the weekends as we head into the 2012 election season.”

Hayes had been the Washington DC Editor of The Nation since October 2007 and joined MSNBC as a contributor in April 2010. He is a former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. From 2008-2010, he was a Bernard Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation. From 2005 to 2006, Hayes was a Schumann Center Writing Fellow at In These Times.

Since 2002, Hayes has written on issues including union organizing and economic democracy, the culture of right-wing email forwards, the worldview of the anti-globalist right, and the culture of technology. His essays, articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Time, The Nation, The American Prospect, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, The Guardian, and The Chicago Reader.

He is currently working on a book about the crisis of authority in American life, which will be published by Crown in the spring of 2012. Hayes grew up in the Bronx, graduated from Brown University in 2001 with a BA in Philosophy and is married to Kate Shaw.

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