Former Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd told NBC News staff on Friday that he was leaving the network he’s made home for nearly two decades.
His announcement comes after he spent the past few weeks “quietly meeting” with other networks and media outlets to discuss possible new gigs in preparation for a post-NBC future. In his letter to colleagues Friday, he hinted that he would be working on several new projects after leaving the network.
“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,” Todd wrote.
“And this is a ripe moment," he continued. “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.”
“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. We wish him all the best in his next endeavors,” a network spokesperson said in a statement.
Todd also pointed out in his memo that his podcast would be coming with him following his exit from the network.
“The ChuckToddcast is also coming with me (thank you NBC). Stay tuned for an announcement about its new home soon,” he noted. “Needless to say, I do plan to continue to share my reporting and unique perspective of covering politics with data and history as important baselines in understanding where we were, where we are and where we’re going.”
Todd, who has seen his role at NBC diminish significantly since he was replaced by Kristen Welker as Meet the Press moderator in 2023, also hinted that local journalism might be what’s in store for him going forward.
“National media can’t win trust back without having a robust partner locally and trying to game algorithms is no way to inform and report. People are craving community and that’s something national media or the major social media companies can’t do as well as local media.,” he stated.
“As I said when I announced my exit from MTP, I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history but reassured by the standards I and others at NBC have worked so hard to set. We can’t tolerate propagandists. But it doesn’t mean sticking your head in the sand either; if you ignore reality, you’ll miss the biggest story,” Todd added. “Being a real political journalist isn’t about building a brand, it’s about reporting what’s happening and explaining why it’s happening and letting the public absorb the facts without judging them for coming to a different conclusion. If you do this job seeking popularity, or to simply be an activist, you are doing this job incorrectly.”
Todd’s exit comes almost 18 years after he joined the network in March 2007 from the National Journal, where he penned “The Hotline” and served as the outlet’s editor in chief. Becoming NBC News’ political director at the age of 34, Todd quickly moved up the ranks and eventually supplanted David Gregory as the anchor of Meet the Press in 2014, a role he would hold for nearly nine years.
In recent years, however, Todd has seen his stock fade at NBC. In 2020, his daily MSNBC version of Meet the Press was moved from its 5 p.m. ET slot to early afternoons, only to be relegated to NBC’s streaming channel two years later. Meanwhile, amid the stalwart Sunday show’s dwindling ratings, NBC decided to promote Welker to moderator in 2023, announcing that Todd would work on special projects and serve as the network’s top political analyst.
Though his presence on NBC and its cable counterparts had lessened since his MTP departure, Todd still made waves last spring when he publicly decried the network's decision to hire former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst. His open criticism of the move helped open the floodgates for other network personalities to admonish NBC, prompting the company to backtrack and rescind its offer to McDaniel.
While Trump’s condemnation of network executives over the McDaniel fiasco led some staffers to wonder if his time at NBC would soon come to an end, Todd’s departure is likely more a result of the current landscape the mainstream media finds itself in now, especially NBC Universal.
Late last year, NBC’s parent company Comcast announced that it would be spinning off most of its cable assets — including MSNBC and CNBC — into a new standalone company called SpinCo. Additionally, MSNBC president Rashida Jones stepped down as president of MSNBC last month.
His exit from NBC News also comes as a number of highly paid veteran journalists have left their outlets rather than accept lower-paid positions, all while broadcast and cable networks continue to experience sinking ratings and dwindling ad revenues as more and more news consumers cut the cord and pivot to digital and streaming options.
Todd, meanwhile, is not the only high-profile on-air news personality to leave his network after nearly 20 years on the job. Rather than accept a move to the “graveyard” midnight shift, Jim Acosta left CNN on Tuesday and immediately launched a new online show on Substack, where he has already pulled in more than 100,000 subscribers.
