Lester Holt is stepping down as anchor of ‘NBC Nightly News’

(CNN) — Lester Holt, the trusted face of “NBC Nightly News” for the past decade, is stepping down from the newscast this summer.

Holt will continue to host “Dateline NBC,” the network’s prime time newsmagazine.

“Quite simply, Lester is the beating heart of this news organization,” NBC News executive vice president of programming Janelle Rodriguez said in an internal memo on Monday. “He’s earned deep respect and reverence from our newsroom, industry colleagues and, most importantly, viewers.”

When Holt was elevated to the job in 2015, he was the first African-American solo anchor of a weekday network nightly newscast.

While broadcast TV audiences have declined in recent years, the nightly newscasts on NBC, ABC and CBS can still draw a combined 20 million viewers on a good night.

ABC’s “World News Tonight,” led by David Muir, who has been in the chair since 2014, averaged 7.6 million viewers in the fourth quarter of last year. Holt’s “Nightly News” averaged 6.1 million viewers.

The “CBS Evening News,” which averaged 4.5 million viewers, recently went through its own anchor transition, with Norah O’Donnell departing the newscast and two anchors, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, taking the helm.

NBC did not immediately name Holt’s successor, but Tom Llamas - who anchors the network’s nightly streaming newscast, “Top Story,” and frequently fills in for Holt – is in line for the post.

Monday’s announcement indicated that Holt had signed a new long-term contract to remain with the network, but as the leader of one program instead of two.

In a memo to staffers, Holt said “I’m excited to report I will be continuing as anchor of Dateline NBC, but for the first time in a fulltime capacity whereby I will be expanding my footprint on the broadcast and crafting Dateline hours on subjects I care deeply about.”

The-CNN-Wire
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