Despite launching back on November 15 when it chose to identify as MS NOW, the artist formerly known as MSNBC has been making programming changes with a March announcement about a daytime overhaul and now word on Friday from Variety’s Brian Steinberg about its weekend shows. Incredibly, two shows and six hours are being wiped out in favor of more taped podcasts.
Steinberg said this move – which will see “expanding…use of a popular Saturday-night program from Crooked Media” in the Pod Save America bros “as well as podcasts hosted by MS NOW mainstays Nicolle Wallace and Chris Hayes” – is a flashback to its past when MSNBC would turn over hours of weekend programming to Dateline reruns and, yes, Lockup.
The Weekend: Primetime is seeing its three-hour show come to an almost immediate end. Despite having premiered in May 2025, the show is being made comfortable so it can die with dignity after Saturday with liberal co-hosts Antonia Hylton, Elise Jordan, Ayman Moyheldin, and Catherine Rampell seeing their time together come to an end.
It’s particularly tough for the far-left, pro-Islamist Moyheldin as this marks at least the third cancelled show since he joined the network in 2011 as a dual correspondent for MSNBC and NBC. Maybe he could go back to Al-Jazeera.
This will mean MS NOW live programming will end at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, but Steinberg said “the network will continue to be staffed for breaking news” with Richard Lui ostensibly waiting in the wings as he’s done being “on standby” “for many years.”
At some point this year, the other cancellation is the three-hour, weekend afternoon show Alex Witt Reports, but news will continue on the network from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern as Hylton will take that slot at a to-be-announced date.
Steinberg said in his story that, along with Moyheldin, Catherine “I’m not an activist! I’m a journalist” Rampell and faux Republican Elise Jordan “are expected to stay with MS NOW.”
However, that will not be the case for Witt, whose shows have been a go-to for many of our hit supercuts from Bill D’Agostino and Notable Quotables. Steinberg revealed Witt “will depart later in the year.”
He said it will be the end of an era of sorts as Witt “has kept a news presence at the network since 1999” and sever “one of MS NOW’s last ties to its early history” despite having remained on weekends for decades as “nothing else…put on” their “schedule drew bigger or more reliable numbers than her.”
