Rashida Jones plans to step down as president of MSNBC, The Hill learned Tuesday.
Jones, who has served as the network’s top executive for four years, informed top anchors and MSNBC leaders of her decision this week and shared the news widely with the network on a call Tuesday morning.
Mark Lazarus, the chair of NBCUniversal Media Group, joined Jones on Tuesday’s call and has appointed Rebecca Kutler, currently senior vice president of content strategy, to replace her on an interim basis. Jones will vacate the role in March, she told employees.
When Jones was hired in 2021, she was the first Black woman to head a major television network. She presided over MSNBC’s coverage of President Biden’s time in the White House and President-elect Trump’s legal battles through an increasingly competitive cable news landscape.
Jones recruited top former Biden administration officials such as Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders-Townsend to host shows on the left-leaning network and oversaw a revamped push into MSNBC’s live events and nonlinear content strategies.
MSNBC routinely ranks behind Fox News in the cable news ratings race, though it notched a string of viewership wins over competitor CNN during Jones’s tenure before experiencing sharp declines in viewership in the weeks following the presidential election last fall.
“Rashida has expertly navigated MSNBC through a years-long, unrelenting and unprecedented news cycle, all while driving the network to record viewership and making investments in nonlinear businesses,” Lazarus wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday obtained by The Hill. “MSNBC is well-positioned for the future, and I am grateful that she will continue to support us during this transition.”
Jones’s departure comes just weeks after Comcast, MSNBC’s parent company, announced plans to spin off its cable assets amid dwindling Wall Street value for its linear properties as more viewers cut cable in favor of streaming services and social media platforms.
On Tuesday morning’s call, Lazarus confirmed MSNBC will retain its name as part of the planned spinoff.
“In what I hope will be welcome news, for the foreseeable future, we will retain the name — I know there was some discussion with the MSNBC name, so you can take that off of your worry list on things,” he told staffers on the call.
Some of MSNBC’s top anchors, such as Rachel Maddow and Andrea Mitchell, sang Jones’s praises during the companywide call.
“The collegial culture among us, and the mutual respect among us … that is because of you, Rashida,” Maddow said. “And it’s rare in the cable news business.”
Updated at 10:44 a.m. EST