MSNBC’s Prime Change: Rita Loses ‘Live & Direct;’ She’ll Host ‘Investigates’ & Specials

When the New York Times forecasted imminent changes to MSNBC’s primetime schedule, the first question was obvious: Who’s being cancelled? Every insider I asked pointed to the same one: Live & Direct with Rita Cosby.

Now it’s official: Less than twelve months after premiering, MSNBC’s experiment with Live & Direct is over. Cosby is becoming the primary anchor of “MSNBC Investigates” at 10 and 11pm, the network announced today.

When Cosby joined the network, she was promised a primetime position. Now, she’ll keep working on “big gets” and “big specials,” and they’ll air as MSNBC Investigates episodes from time to time. MSNBC is giving her the “Rita Cosby Specials” unit to work on longform programming.

A big part of tonight’s press release is spent spinning Live & Direct’s cancellation into a positive for Cosby. Abrams talks about Cosby becoming “much more important to the network as a whole” and she professes to be “absolutely thrilled to be taking on these additional duties…”