After 10 Years, Holt Is Leaving NBC Nightly News

Lester Holt is leaving NBC Nightly News after a decade at the helm. "After 10 years, 17 if you include my years on the weekends, the time has come for me to step away from my role as anchor of 'Nightly News,'" he said in a memo to staffers Monday. He said he would continue to anchor the program until "around the start of summer." But the 65-year-old isn't leaving NBC, Deadline reports. He said he would remain at Dateline, which he has anchored since 2011, "but for the first time in a fulltime capacity whereby I will be expanding my footprint on the broadcast" and crafting hours on subjects he cares about.

Holt took over as Nightly anchor in 2015 after Brian Williams was suspended for making a false claim about his experiences in Iraq. Variety describes Holt as a "calming presence at NBC News, where his unflappable and low-key demeanor helped the news division move forward after a period of tumult." No replacement has been announced.

Holt "has led the network during some of the country's most fraught and challenging times in the past decade, most notably during the early days of the pandemic when Lester's voice was a source of comfort each night for so many," Janelle Rodriguez, NBC News' executive vice president of programming, wrote to staffers. "Quite simply, Lester is the beating heart of this news organization." (More Lester Holt stories.)