Chris Hayes will take over the 8 p.m. time slot on MSNBC in the next month, the channel is planning to announce on Thursday morning, the day after the current host of that hour, Ed Schultz, said he was moving from the weekdays to the weekends.
Mr. Hayes, a liberal intellectual who has hosted a well-regarded weekend morning program on MSNBC for the past 18 months, is a protege of Rachel Maddow, the highest-rated host on the channel. He will become the lead-in for her 9 p.m. program, “The Rachel Maddow Show.â€
The change is predicated on the belief that MSNBC can win a wider audience with Mr. Hayes than it did with Mr. Schultz, a champion of the working class whose bluster didn’t always pair well with Ms. Maddow and the channel’s other prime time program, “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.†Mr. Hayes, on the other hand, is just as wonky as Ms. Maddow and Mr. O’Donnell, andis a regular contributor to both of their programs.
Mr. Hayes’s promotion was described by people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it had not been officially announced by the channel yet. Once it takes effect, Mr. Hayes, 34, will be the youngest host of a prime-time show on any of the country’s major cable news channels, all of which seek out youthful viewers but tend to have middle-aged hosts and a core audience made up of senior citizens. Of Mr. Schultz’s one million viewers last year, for example, only 249,000 were between the ages of 25 and 54.
Ms. Maddow had an average of 339,000 viewers in that key demographic. Usually cable news ratings work the other way â€" the programs earlier in the evening outperform the programs later in the evening. That’s partly why MSNBC sees an opportunity to grow at 8 p.m.
But taking over that hour is a difficult assignment for Mr. Hayes, given Bill O’Reilly’s commanding grip on the time slot! . Mr. O’Reilly, the biggest star on the Fox News Channel, routinely doubled Mr. Schultz’s delivery of 25- to 54-year-old viewers last year, much to the chagrin of Mr. Schultz, who parodied his rival on a regular basis. The ratings imbalance at 8 p.m. helped to obscure the fact that MSNBC has, in prime time overall, crept closer to Fox in that age group.
Mr. Hayes is as eager as anyone at MSNBC to beat Fox, even if the two channels don’t actually fight for the same viewers. His metamorphosis from a writer at The Nation magazine to a broadcaster began several years ago when he was signed up to be a part-time paid contributor to MSNBC. He impressed executives at the channel when he filled in for Ms. Maddow in 2011, and in September of that year he was given his weekend morning show, called “Up with Chris Hayesâ€
“Up†doesn’t have a huge audience â€" it had about 139,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 last month â€" but it consistently beats CNN on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and it has been praised by media critics for allowing long, thoughtful conversations about politics and public policy, the kind rarely seen elsewhere on television.
These conversations usually project a liberal worldview, in line with MSNBC as a whole. But Mr. Hayes and his producers also try to book expert guests who don’t often get on television, including conservatives; a recent discussion with Mr. Hayes and four conservatives lit up the blogosphere. “Add this segment to the list of reasons Chris Hayes’ Up has become the most interesting weekend political show in America,†wrote BuzzFeed at the time.
An MSNBC spokeswoman declined to comment on the impending change. The people who described it on co! ndition o! f anonymity did not say what would replace “Up†on weekend mornings. Nor did they say when exactly Mr. Hayes would move to prime time.
Mr. Schultz said on Wednesday night that he’d sign off on Thursday, then start his new weekend program in April. It will be shown from 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
