NEW YORK — He’s been the anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News” for a decade. As summer 2025 begins, so will his time away from the long-running afternoon broadcast.
Lester Holt shared the news Monday that he will step down as the lead anchor for NBC News’ signature late-afternoon national news cast. But, he’ll still be seen on NBC’s “Dateline,” the newsmagazine where he has been the principal anchor for almost 15 years.
NBC News did not immediately name Holt’s successor on the program he took the helm of in June 2015, after hosting weekend editions of the network’s signature newscast. He was a co-anchor of Weekend TODAY for 12 years, and has served as the principal anchor of “Dateline” since September 2011.
“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,” Holt wrote in a note Monday to “Nightly News” and “Dateline” staffers shared on Monday by NBC News. “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.”
Holt, who is 65 years of age, succeeded Brian Williams at “NBC Nightly News” after it was found that Williams falsified several news stories while in the role. His radio role was at a Country radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area during the “Urban Cowboy” craze of the early 1980s. In 1981 he would join the WCBS-2 in New York reporter corps, shifting in 1982 to co-owned KNXT (now KCBS-TV) in Los Angeles. In 1986, Holt shifted to WBBM-2 in Chicago, where he would anchor the evening news until 2000. At that time, he joined MSNBC, where he would first gain national exposure as a news anchor.
