Tom Llamas will succeed Lester Holt as anchor of NBC Nightly News.
Llamas, who has been with the network since 2021, will continue to anchor Top Story, a signature nighttime show on NBC News Now that runs from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET, immediately after the Nightly News. Llamas also will hold the title of managing editor.
The date of Llamas’ debut as anchor has yet to be determined. Holt will sign off in early summer.
Holt announced last month that he was stepping down from the news broadcast after a decade in the post. He will stay with the network in a full-time role at Dateline.
Llamas, 45, was viewed as a potential successor to Holt when he made the jump from ABC News to NBC News. He had been the weekend anchor of World News Tonight, as well as the network’s chief national affairs correspondent. At NBC News, he also has been senior national correspondent, contributing to the nightly news as well as Today and breaking news coverage. Llamas is represented by his longtime agent, Rick Ramage at UTA.
Janelle Rodriguez, NBC News executive vice president of programming, said in a statement that Llamas “has the winning combination of journalistic excellence, passionate storytelling and unyielding integrity — all characteristics that have long been trademarks of NBC Nightly News.”
Llamas will be taking the reins of the newscast at a period of upheaval in the network news business, as broadcasters navigate a shift in viewer habits and a soft advertising market.
That said, while evening news audiences certainly aren’t what they once were, the newscasts still pull larger viewership than cable news’ most popular shows. ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir has long led in the ratings, although Holt’s newscast did score some wins during NBC’s coverage of the Olympics last summer.
In naming Llamas to the role, NBC News noted that he has helped introduce the network “to a new generation of viewers” on NBC News Now, which has a younger audience than the traditional network. He will be the youngest anchor at any of a network evening news broadcast.
Llamas began his career as an intern at Telemundo and then with NBC News, where he worked overnights as a production assistant before moving to other positions. He worked at WTVJ and WNBC.
In a statement, Llamas said that anchoring the evening news broadcast “is a profound honor and one that carries tremendous responsibility.” He said that Holt “is a great man and one of the most trusted broadcasters of our time. Just like Lester, I promise to be devoted to our viewers and dedicated to the truth.”
CBS News revamped its evening news earlier this year, with Maurice Dubois and John Dickerson anchoring a broadcast that puts a heavy emphasis on correspondent storytelling.
