Lester Holt, the familiar and trusted anchor of NBC Nightly News for the past decade, will be stepping down from the newscast this summer.
Holt will remain the host of Dateline NBC, the network’s prime-time newsmagazine.
“Lester is, quite simply, the heartbeat of this news organization,” NBC News executive vice president of programming Janelle Rodriguez stated in an internal memo on Monday. “He has earned immense respect and admiration from our newsroom, industry peers, and, most importantly, our viewers.”
When Holt was promoted to the role in 2015, he made history as the first African-American solo anchor of a weekday network nightly newscast.
Though broadcast TV audiences have been shrinking in recent years, nightly newscasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS still attract a combined 20 million viewers on a strong night.
ABC’s World News Tonight, anchored by David Muir 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 underwent its own anchor change, with Norah O’Donnell leaving the program and John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois stepping in as co-anchors.
NBC has not yet named a successor to Holt, but Tom Llamas, who currently anchors the network’s nightly streaming newscast Top Story and often fills in for Holt, is expected to take over.
Monday’s announcement revealed that Holt had signed a new long-term contract to stay with the network, though in the role of leader of just one program rather than two.
In a memo to staff, Holt shared, “I’m excited to announce I will continue as anchor of Dateline NBC, but for the first time in a full-time capacity, where I’ll have the opportunity to expand my role and craft Dateline segments on topics I’m deeply passionate about.”
