Rachel Maddow To Cut MSNBC Prime-time Show From Daily To Weekly

Longtime MSNBC television host Rachel Maddow announced on Monday that her show will be moving from nightly to weekly beginning next month.

“For big news events, for things like the leadup to the election, I will, of course, be here more than that, but that is the general plan,” Maddow said on her show, but a weekly appearance will allow for “more time to work on some of this other stuff I’ve got cooking for MSNBC and NBC.”

The news comes after Maddow’s two-month hiatus. She announced at the end of January that she was taking time off to work on a movie based on her book Bag Man, about former President Richard Nixon‘s disgraced Vice President Spiro Agnew and also put time into a new podcast with MSNBC parent company NBC Universal.

Ali Velshi served as Maddow’s primary replacement during the two months she was gone and is expected to be involved in the four days a week that Maddow is absent. She complimented Velshi for the job he did filling in for her, calling him a “prince among men,” but the network said that they would not name a replacement for Maddow and would instead rely on a rotation of hosts for the 9 p.m. hour. MSNBC announced that the prime-time slot will be called MSNBC Prime.

Maddow, who has been hosting her show since 2008, is MSNBC’s top-rated personality.