Rachel Maddow made her highly-anticipated return to MSNBC tonight, and had some news to share about her future.
Maddow announced that she will be switching to weekly shows beginning May 2—Mondays only. For the rest of this month, she will be on at 9 p.m. Monday through Thursdays, no Fridays and after that, The Rachel Maddow Show, which premiered in September 2008, will feature rotating hosts on Tuesdays-Fridays.
The nights when Maddow is not on air, MSNBC’s 9 p.m. hour will be referred to as MSNBC Prime, not The Rachel Maddow Show.
The network’s highest-rated host has been taking some time off from her primetime program to work on side projects, including as an executive producer on a Focus Features movie based on her book and award-winning podcast Bag Man, about a political bribery scandal involving former vp Spiro Agnew.
Maddow is also developing a new podcast and working on the launch of a production shop with former MSNBC president Phil Griffin.
These projects are part of the $30 million per year contract she signed last summer to remain with NBCUniversal, a deal that gives her “the freedom to pursue a range of formats including film and TV series.”
“One of the things I realized … to my surprise, is that I actually don’t really need another hiatus,” Maddow told viewers on Monday. “This one was great, but I think I only needed the one. I do still have all these other irons in the fire, all these other things I’m working on that I want to bring to fruition, none of them are fast—all of them take a long time—and I’m still working on all of them, but I don’t think I need another big stretch of time off.”
Maddow also gave a shout-out to Ali Velshi, her primary fill-in at 9 p.m. Velshi spent five weeks anchoring the program from Hungary, Poland and Ukraine.
Yaaaaas…. @maddow‘s opening monologue paying tribute to our dear friend and colleague @AliVelshi is so awesome & so well deserved – stoked to be on both of their teams – bravo @MSNBC
— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) April 12, 2022