Chuck Todd quits NBC News ahead of his contract 'lapsing'
Longtime Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd has announced he is leaving NBC News before his contract is reportedly set to expire.
'There's never a perfect time to leave a place that's been a professional home for so long, but I'm pretty excited about a few new projects,' Todd wrote in a memo sent to fellow staffers on Friday.
'So, I'm grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter during this important moment,' he went on.
'The media has a lot of work to do to win back the trust of viewers/listeners/readers and I'm convinced the best place to start is from the bottom up.
'At my core, I'm an entrepreneur - I spent my first 15 years professionally working for the company that started the political newsletter craze that dominates today.
'And this is a ripe moment.'
The announcement comes days after NBC News laid off approximately 40 staffers and CNN fired nearly 200 employees. The layoffs at 30 Rock amounted to approximately 3 percent of the network news division's workforce.
Todd, 52, took over as host of Meet the Press in 2014 but stepped down in 2023. He was replaced by Kristen Welker, and insiders told Variety his contract was set to end sometime after the election and that he's since been in talks with other stations.
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Chuck Todd has announced he is leaving NBC News before his contract is reportedly set to expire
'There's never a perfect time to leave a place that's been a professional home for so long, but I'm pretty excited about a few new projects' Todd said Friday. 'I'm grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter'
'The only way to fix this information eco system is to stop whining about the various ways the social media companies are manipulating things and instead roll up our collective sleeves and start with local,' Todd, in turn, wrote.
He added how he was retaining the rights of his podcast, the Chuck Toddcast. He told his former colleagues the show would be 'coming with [him]'.
'Stay tuned for an announcement about its new home soon,' he wrote, as other on-air personalities like Jim Acosta flee their respective stations for independent ventures.
Todd said he'd 'continue to share [his] reporting and unique perspective of covering politics with data and history', so the American public may better understand 'where we are and where we’re going'.
'We’re grateful for Chuck’s many contributions to our political coverage during his nearly two-decade career at NBC News and for his deep commitment to Meet the Press and its enduring legacy,' a statement from the station added.
'We wish him all the best in his next endeavors.'
The series of statements confirmed circulating reports of Todd's then-rumored exit, at a time where cable news is in the midst of a pronounced decline.
Meanwhile, figures like Acosta, Megyn Kelly and Don Lemon have all moved to independent, digital ventures, with the former CNN Newsroom anchor securing some 123,000 subscribers for his Substack since his on-air sign-off earlier this week.
The announcement comes days after NBC News laid off approximately 40 staffers. The layoffs amounted to approximately 3 percent of the network news division's workforce
'The only way to fix this information eco system is to stop whining about the various ways the social media companies are manipulating things and instead roll up our collective sleeves and start with local,' Todd, seen here during his final year on Meet the Press in 2023, said
The former CNN staffer who broke the story of Acosta's then-anticipated exit, Oliver Darcy, has also enjoyed success with a digital format - with his wildly successful Status newsletter.
Such success shows a shifting landscape in terms of news - one CNN CEO Mark Thompson seemingly caught wind of before unloading his layoffs earlier this month.
In doing so, he also aired intent to shift CNN's operations to being more digital-based, with a streaming service and plans to circulate more short, vertical news videos.
At the time, Thompson told staff at the struggling station the future is digital - and that giving people the news they want, when they want it, is the nature of the beast. He also warned that the certainty of CNN's future success was still 'unclear.'
Darcy's newsletter further reported the CEO recently demanded tone-down reporting surrounding President Donald Trump, as did SpinCo CEO Mark Lazarus, the new boss of the media conglomerate that oversees MSNBC.
On Thursday, Comcast's executives held a post-earning conference call to discuss its upcoming Cable spinoff, which will see networks MSNBC and CNBC split from NBC News in terms of who is running the channels.
The new company, headed by Lazarus, will include networks like USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and the Golf Channel. Comcast will retain some NBCUniversal assets, such as NBC and NBC News.
SpinCo CEO Mark Lazarus, the new boss of the media conglomerate that now oversees MSNBC, no longer oversees NBCUniversal-owned assets like NBC News
NBC and NBC News are now run by the chair of NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios, which is touting its catalog as 'a free-standing, strong collection of businesses with lots of cash flow generation capability for many years to come, good market position and great focus'
Earlier this month. Rashida Jones stepped down as MSNBC's president
The streaming service Peacock will also go to Comcast, while being run by the chair of NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios, Donna Langley, and Matt Strauss, chair of NBCUniversal’s media group.
'When you look at the what remains in the aggregate media company, it’s a strong, strong business, one of the best in the country and, if not, the world,' Comcast President Mike Cavanagh told Deadline last week.
He called the rejiggered company 'a free-standing, strong collection of businesses with lots of cash flow generation capability for many years to come, good market position and great focus.'
Lazarus's MSNBC, meanwhile, is already in the midst of covering Trump's second presidency, in could be a last-ditch effort to repair its waning cable ratings.
Earlier this month, Rashida Jones stepped down as MSNBC's president.
The loss of Todd, meanwhile, is undoubtedly a big one for NBCUniversal, as he appeared on many of its channels to provide political expertise.
He joined NBC News in 2007 as a political director, before being named the network's chief White House corresponded in 2008.
Six years later, he was promoted to lead Meet the Press, succeeding fellow fixture David Gregory in doing so.
The loss of Todd, meanwhile, is undoubtedly a big one for NBCUniversal, as he appeared on many of its channels to provide political expertise. He joined NBC News in 2007 as a political director, before being named the network's chief White House corresponded in 2008
Six years later, he was promoted to lead Meet the Press, where he bolstered the program with a regular daytime hour on MSNBC called 'MTP Daily'
He expanded the program by doing a regular daytime hour on MSNBC called 'MTP Daily,' a program that was eventually moved over to the live-streaming service NBC News Now.
The ended when he was replaced by Welker in June of 2023. Since then, he's been a far less prominent presence.
'I’d rather leave a little bit too soon than stay a tad too long,' he said at the time. 'So while I may be leaving this chair, I’m still going to help NBC navigate and coach colleagues in this 2024 campaign season and beyond.'
Since then, he had held the role of NBC news' resident chief political analyst, where he would occasionally appear on Meet the Press as Welker's guest.
