Lester Holt, the veteran NBC newscaster and anchor of the “NBC Nightly News” over the last decade, announced on Monday that he will step down from the flagship evening newscast in the coming months.
Mr. Holt told colleagues that he would remain at NBC, expanding his duties at “Dateline,” where he serves as the show’s anchor.
“It has truly been the honor of a lifetime to work with each of you every day, keeping journalism as our true north and our viewers at the center of everything we do,” Mr. Holt, 65, wrote in a memo to colleagues.
He said that he would continue anchoring the evening news until “the start of summer.” The network did not immediately name a successor.
Mr. Holt provided a steady hand to “NBC Nightly News” when he ascended to the job in 2015. The evening newscast was mired in a scandal after it was revealed that Brian Williams, the anchor at the time, had embellished a story about a helicopter attack in Iraq.
Mr. Holt, then the weekend anchor of the “NBC Nightly News,” filled in for Mr. Williams for several months, and then was given the job full time after it was decided that Mr. Williams would move over to MSNBC after a suspension.
In a note to staff, Janelle Rodriguez, the executive vice president of programming at NBC News, applauded Mr. Holt’s tenure, and for leading the newscast “during some of the country’s most fraught and challenging times in the past decade.”
“Quite simply, Lester is the beating heart of this news organization,” she wrote.
Ms. Rodriguez highlighted Mr. Holt’s role in the opening weeks of the 2020 pandemic, “when Lester’s voice was a source of comfort each night for so many,” she wrote. At the time, the show was averaging as many as 12 million viewers a night, drawing the sort of audience “NBC Nightly News” had not seen in more than a decade.
“This is the story of our lifetimes,” he said at the time.
Mr. Holt’s departure comes at a time of change for many news divisions. A slew of veteran anchors — Hoda Kotb, Chris Wallace, Chuck Todd, Norah O’Donnell — have left their jobs in recent months.
The “CBS Evening News” recently transitioned to a new format, turning to two anchors and a slew of correspondents to lead its 6:30 program in lieu of a single person reading off the news.
The evening newscasts do not hold nearly the same clout they did decades ago, but they still draw big audiences. Since September, the “NBC Nightly News” is the second most-watched evening newscast, drawing an average audience of 6.3 million viewers. ABC’s “World News Tonight,” anchored by David Muir, draws 7.9 million viewers a night, and the “CBS Evening News” has an audience of 4.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
Speculation will immediately kick off within 30 Rockefeller Plaza over who will replace Mr. Holt in the anchor chair. Tom Llamas, the anchor of a daily digital show on NBC News NOW, is widely believed to be a leading candidate for the job, according to three people familiar with the news division.
Mr. Holt told colleagues that after he steps down he will be able to dedicate more time to “Dateline” and “for the first time in a full-time capacity.”
“A smile comes to my face when I think that with ‘Nightly News,’ and ‘Dateline,’ I have now anchored two of the most successful and iconic television news programs in broadcast history,” he wrote. “As a 20-year-old radio reporter on the police beat chasing breaking news around San Francisco, I could never have imagined my career path would unfold in the way it has. What an amazing ride.”
Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.
