Brian Williams will make his return to anchoring a regularly scheduled program on September 6 with the 11th Hour, a new late-night program on MSNBC. The 11th Hour will air at 11 PM and be a wrap-up of the day’s election news, consequently it will only run for the duration of the election.
If the name sounds familiar, Don Lemon briefly hosted a half-hour program called The 11th Hour on CNN in 2013.
“This new assignment is a natural extension of the hundreds of hours of political coverage Brian has anchored through this campaign cycle so far,” said MSNBC President Phil Griffin.
“He and Rachel Maddow and the team have been great on the big nights, and now he’ll build on MSNBC’s primetime momentum by taking us live into the 11pm hour every night.”
“We want a broadcast that will feel like a continuation of the conversation we’ve had all during this unprecedented campaign season,” said Williams. “As the general election ramps up, there’s an opportunity to assess and discuss the campaign at the end of each day. With the help of the very best team in the business, we hope to offer some closure and sanity in addition to previewing where the campaigns are headed next.”
CNN has also been adding live coverage at 11 PM with CNN Tonight and anchor Don Lemon oftentimes extending live coverage another hour.
The move marks a return to anchoring for Williams, who has served as breaking news anchor for MSNBC after he lost his Nightly News seat. He has co-anchored MSNBC’s election coverage with Rachel Maddow and anchored coverage of Pope Francis’s visit to the United States.
The new show also allows Brian Williams to be in late night, albeit in a different way than he probably anticipated. Williams once proposed to NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke that he take over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno and also approached CBS’s Leslie Moonves about taking over for David Letterman, according to New York Magazine.