Rachel Maddow is going back to nightly prime-time duty on MSNBC.
The return to a daily time slot for Maddow, the progressive network’s most popular host, will run though the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, starting Jan. 20, the network announced Monday.
Maddow moved to a once a week schedule in 2022. She appeared on Mondays while Alex Wagner hosted the high-profile 9 p.m hour Tuesday through Friday.
Bolstering Maddow’s presence is a bet by MSNBC that viewers will again seek out the liberal-leaning network once Trump is back in office. MSNBC saw its ratings rise during the president-elect’s trials and impeachment hearings.
MSNBC has suffered a dramatic decline in viewership since Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become only the second person elected to non-consecutive terms to the White House. Politically engaged cable news viewers tend to tune out after an election if they are unhappy with the results.
While Maddow does her nightly program, Wagner will report across the country under the banner of “Trumpland: The First 100 Days.” Her program “Alex Wagner Tonight” will return to the MSNBC schedule on May 1.
The move also comes as MSNBC‘s parent Comcast prepares to spin the network off into a new company with other cable assets including CNBC, the Golf Channel and USA Network. The spinoff is aimed at taking slow-growth assets out of Comcast.
Maddow pulled away from a daily schedule so she could pursue other projects such as podcasts, documentaries and scripted feature films. In addition to continuing her show on a weekly basis, she frequently appeared on MSNBC for breaking political news coverage.
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