Chuck Todd, the former “Meet the Press” moderator, is leaving NBC News, he told colleagues in a memo issued Friday, a move he’s making in order to pursue ventures outside the NBCUniversal empire.
Todd had in recent weeks been meeting with other news outlets and potential employers, according to people familiar with the matter. His current contract with NBC News had been expected to lapse at some point after the 2024 election.
“There’s never a perfect time to leave a place that’s been a professional home for so long, but I’m pretty excited about a few new projects that are on the cusp of going from ‘pie in the sky’ to ‘near reality,’ Todd told NBC News staffers in a memo Friday. “So I’m grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter during this important moment.”
He said his “Chuck Toddcast” podcast would be “coming with me,” and urged colleagues to “stay tuned for an announcement about its new home soon.” Todd plans “to continue to share my reporting and unique perspective of covering politics with data and history as important baselines in understanding where we were, where we are and where we’re going.”
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“We’re grateful for Chuck’s many contributions to our political coverage during his nearly two-decade career at NBC News and for his deep commitment to Meet the Press and its enduring legacy,” NBC News said in a statement. “We wish him all the best in his next endeavors.”
Many personnel at traditional TV outlets have explored opportunities with digital or new-tech outlets in recent months, a nod to the more difficult economics of national newsgathering in the current climate. Jim Acosta, the CNN anchor, announced earlier this week that he was leaving the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed network to launch his own Substack. Don Lemon and Megyn Kelly are among the ranks of well-known TV anchors who have moved on to digital media.
When he moderated “Meet The Press,” Todd demonstrated an entrepreneurial streak, bringing the long-running Sunday program into podcasting and even launching a film festival.
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to get in front of millennials. I think the millennial generation learns as much visually as they do the old-fashioned way, by the book,” Todd told Variety in 2017. “We are no longer in the business of telling people how they should consume information. Our job is to provide depth and information in any way they want to consume it.”
He told staffers he expected to continue to try to build new media businesses. “The media has a lot of work to do to win back the trust of viewers/listeners/readers and I’m convinced the best place to start is from the bottom up. At my core, I’m an entrepreneur — I spent my first 15 years professionally working for the company that started the political newsletter craze that dominates today. And this is a ripe moment,” he said, adding: “The only way to fix this information eco system is to stop whining about the various ways the social media companies are manipulating things and instead roll up our collective sleeves and start with local. National media can’t win trust back without having a robust partner locally and trying to game algorithms is no way to inform and report. People are craving community and that’s something national media or the major social media companies can’t do as well as local media.”
Todd joined NBC News in 2007 as a political director, after having spent 15 years working at National Journal and leading the “The Hotline,” an early digital newsletter focused on inside-the-Beltway maneuvers. In 2008, he was named chief White House correspondent. In 2014, he was elevated to top duties at “Meet The Press,” succeeding David Gregory. He expanded the program by doing a regular daytime hour on MSNBC called “MTP Daily,” a program that was eventually moved over to the live-streaming service NBC News Now.
Once a regular presence on across the NBCUniversal portfolio, Todd has been less visible in recent months. He ceded the “Meet the Press” chair to Kristen Welker in 2023.
Even so, he remains a long-time student of politics, and his knowledge and contacts as well as the public’s familiarity with him, would help other potential employers or help him launch his own ventures.
He still knows how to make a splash.
In March, Todd appeared on “Meet The Press” and protested the hire announced at that time of Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who had been named an NBC News contributor. “You got put into an impossible situation, booking this interview, and then all of a sudden the rug was pulled out from under you, and you find out she’s being paid to show up?” Todd said to Welker.
NBC News subsequently reversed its decision, after staffers began to protest, most notably on MSNBC programs.