MSNBC is expected to formally announce plans to move Brian Williams into the 11 p.m. ET time slot through Election Day, anchoring a half-hour show focused on politics.
As TVNewser reported Monday, the network has been experimenting with live news at 11, using fill-in hosts Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Ari Melber.
The move to 11 will give Williams his first regularly-scheduled newscast on the network since he anchored MSNBC’s The News with Brian Williams, which was one of the network’s original newscasts at its launch in 1996. Variety reports Williams will be paired at 11 p.m. with Patrick Burkey, who was a producer on The News and later worked with Williams at NBC Nightly News.
Burkey returned to MSNBC in September 2015 when Williams returned to work following his departure from Nightly News. In June of this year, Burkey took over breaking news and special event programming, and has been lead executive producer through all of Williams’ work in his role as breaking news anchor and lead co-anchor of elections coverage (alongside Rachel Maddow) for the network.
As TVNewser reported at the time, insiders speculated Burkey’s role at the network would lead to the eventual creation of a dedicated timeslot for Williams in the MSNBC lineup.