MSNBC sets date for expanded ‘Morning Joe’

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MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” has set a date for its expansion into a four hour show.

The MSNBC morning show helmed by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski will start airing from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. eastern April 4, 2022.

The move will eliminate the 9 a.m. hour of “MSNBC Reports” anchored by Stephanie Ruhle as she prepares to move to primetime, taking over “The 11th Hour” slot at 11 p.m. She will anchor her last “Stephanie Ruhle Reports” Friday, Feb. 11, 2022 and debut at 11 p.m. March 2, 2022.

Until “Morning Joe” expands, the network will fill that hour with a generic “MSNBC Reports” block with rotating anchors (it recently hired Alex Wagner as a fill-in guest anchor, though there’s no word if she will appear then).

“Morning Joe” is a politics focused show that also ventures into other areas of the news.

The show has been on MSNBC for 15 years, replacing a simulcast of “Imus in the Morning” after MSNBC dropped the radio show after its host made offensive comments.

To help fill its three hour run now, select segments from earlier in the show are often repeated later on, a direct example of the morning news adage that very few people sit and watch all of a morning newscast.

It’s not immediately clear if the new fourth hour will be formatted differently or how much it will rely on taped segments. There’s also the possibility that other “Joe” regulars could take on bigger roles across the run time or in the fourth hour to cut down on how much time each anchor is on air.

“Morning Joe” is officially based out of Studio 3A in 30 Rockefeller Center but also frequently has either Scarborough or Brzezinski or both originating from a remote location, frequently Scarborough’s Florida home.

MSNBC installed a professional grade mini studio in his home there to allow him to be physically in Florida at least 183 days a year, a requirement that lets him dodge paying state income tax on his multimillion dollar contract. He previously declared Connecticut home, which has state income tax.