MSNBC announces schedule changes

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MSNBC is expected to announced an overhaul of parts of its schedule.

José Díaz-Balart will will now anchor a weekday edition of “MSNBC Reports” at 10 a.m. eastern.

Díaz-Balart will depart “Noticias Telemundo,” the network’s signature evening newscast, but still appear during special events and breaking news. He will continue to be based in Miami, where “José Díaz-Balart Reports” will originate from and he will continue anchoring “NBC Nightly News” on Saturdays.

He previously anchored the 10 a.m. hour from 2014 to 2016.

Meanwhile, Díaz-Balart’s new show will move “Hallie Jackson Reports” to 3 p.m., which will displace Ayman Mohyeldin, who will get his own show on weekends as well as a weekly show on Peacock.

Jackson will also be anchoring an NBC News Now program later this year.

Joshua Johnson will depart his weekend show and moving to NBC News Now, where he’ll hold down an early evening show and contribute to “Sunday Today” and “NBC Nightly News.”

Johnson already lost one edition of his weekend show “The Week” earlier this year, when Mehdi Hasan has tapped to take over the timeslot Sundays.

What’s still missing from this schedule overhaul is what the network plans to do when “The Rachel Maddow Show” ends its run as a daily show come 2022, which was a key condition in Maddow’s recent contract extension with NBCUniversal.

MSNBC still has time to figure out what to do with her key weekday 9 p.m. eastern slot, though, but by moving Mohyeldin and Hasan into primetime positions, Variety notes this could be a strategy to test the waters on how they play out against primetime audiences (albeit weekend ones).