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News Shows Shaking Up at MSNBC

MSNBC’s prime time schedule will be shuffled, as its new chief, Dan Abrams, makes his first changes, Mediaweek writes. While its three core shows - Hardball, Countdown and Scarborough Country - will remain as is, Rita Cosby: Live & Direct (10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays) will go off the air, and Cosby herself will be a “primary anchor” of MSNBC Investigates. She will also have her own “Rita Cosby Specials” unit.

Tucker Carlson, who joined MSNBC last year, will move from 11 p.m. to two airings, at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

The Live & Direct and Tucker Carlson slots will be taken by MSNBC Investigates, an expansion of the MSNBC and Dateline documentaries that have been seeing some improvement in ratings since airing on Friday nights. The show will now air five nights a week. Michael Rubin and Scott Hooker will head up the new, longform programming for MSNBC Investigates.

The news arena has undergone major shake-ups in the last year as the authoritative and distant voice of anchors has shifted to take on a more personal tone, and as news programs replace veterans with a younger generation of anchors. CBS, for example, has booted veteran Dan Rather off 60 Minutes and is bringing in Katie Couric as anchor, while Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff were brought on as anchors for ABC’s World News Tonight after Peter Jennings’s death.