MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow announced this week that she will begin appearing on air on Monday nights only beginning in May as she scales back her duties on the channel.
The anchor returned to “The Rachel Maddow Show” on April 11 following a two-month-long hiatus where she announced the newly updated schedule to viewers.
“I took a hiatus to give myself a little reset and also to work on some other MSNBC projects that I’ve got cooking,” she said. “The hiatus has been fantastic. I am really grateful for it. I know it is an unusual thing to get in this business.”
“But I am back. I said when I left before that I might eventually be taking another hiatus later on this year. That things were fluid, we'd be taking it one step at a time ... But, one of the things I realized while I was on hiatus working on these other projects these past few weeks, one of the things I realized, to my surprise, is that I actually don’t really need another hiatus.”
“This one was great, but I think only need the one. I do still have all these other irons in the fire, all these other things I’m working on that I want to bring to fruition. None of them are fast, all of them take a long time, I’m still working on all of them. But I don’t think I need another big stretch of time off,” Maddow continued.
The anchor explained that she will continue hosting the program Monday through Thursday during the rest of April but that starting in May, she will only host on Monday nights.
“This might change … We will see how things go, but that is the plan as of now,” Maddow said on her show on Monday.
Maddow added that she would use the time to focus on other projects for MSNBC.
She also told viewers that she will return for “big news events” such as the lead-up to elections.
Maddow announced at the end of January that she would be stepping back from MSNBC’s airwaves to work on multiple other projects, including a film adaptation of her book about former Vice President Spiro Agnew and a new podcast.
The “Rachel Maddow Show” was MSNBC’s most-watched show in 2021, averaging roughly 2.6 million viewers at 9 p.m. ET.
During her hiatus from the show, MSNBC continued to call her slot “The Rachel Maddow Show” while substitutes including Ali Velshi frequently filled in as host while she was away.
Maddow on Monday praised Velshi, calling him a “prince among men.”
Maddow has hosted the show since 2008 and signed a new $30 million deal with MSNBC and NBCUniversal last year.
However, it had been speculated that the host had been wanting to scale back her schedule for some time to focus on other projects.
MSNBC has not announced a successor for its 9 p.m. slot and will instead use a rotation of various as-of-yet-unnamed hosts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
