NBC Nightly News anchor and occasional Jimmy Fallon sidekick Brian Williams will be staying at NBC News for the foreseeable future. Williams has renewed his contract with NBC News.
The news was announced in a memo to staff from NBC News President Deborah Turness. In addition to anchoring Nightly News, Williams will continue to serve as managing editor.
“Brian is one of the most trusted journalists of our time,” Turness wrote. “He has led this organization through every major news event for the last decade, from Hurricane Katrina in his first year in the anchor chair to his exclusive interview with Edward Snowden this year, through elections, wars, natural disasters, tragedies and triumphs. In all of those cases he’s taken Nightly News’s viewers to the heart of the stories that matter most in a way that’s uniquely his.”
Williams recently celebrated his 10th anniversary as Nightly News anchor. That celebration included a new sketch on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, in which he slow-jammed the news. Williams also made appearances on Tina Fey’s 30 Rock.
While NBC’s Today Show has been in crisis mode, Nightly News is a very different story. As the Los Angeles Times notes, the broadcast averages 9.05 million viewers during the current season. That’s the best start for the newscast in nine years. That’s more viewers than what NBC’s primetime shows usually get.
NBC News didn’t reveal the financial terms of the deal, but the LA Times reports that it is over $10 million a year. The network also didn’t say exactly how long “long term” is.
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