Alex Wagner Tonight

Alex Wagner Tonight
Genre	Political news/opinion program
Directed by	Rob Katko
Presented by	Alex Wagner
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Executive producer	Matthew Alexander
Production location	New York City
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	60 minutes
Original release
Network	MSNBC
Release	August 16, 2022 (2022-08-16) – present
Related
The Rachel Maddow Show

Alex Wagner Tonight is an American liberal news and opinion television program hosted by Alex Wagner. It premiered on MSNBC on August 16, 2022, and airs on Tuesdays through Fridays as a substitute for The Rachel Maddow Show (which, since May 2022, has only aired on Monday nights).

Guest hosts for the series include Ali Velshi, Alicia Menendez, Ari Melber and Ayman Mohyeldin.

History

From February to April 2022, as part of her new contract with NBCUniversal, Rachel Maddow took an extended hiatus from her MSNBC program The Rachel Maddow Show in order to focus on other film and podcast projects, with rotating guest hosts filling in for her. Upon Maddow's return, she announced that she would only host the show on Monday nights beginning in May, and continue to feature guest hosts throughout the rest of the week.[1][2]

At this point, The Rachel Maddow Show was retitled MSNBC Prime on Tuesday through Friday nights, but retained the same staff and overall format.[3] Average viewership of the hour as MSNBC Prime was lower than that of The Rachel Maddow Show, but still ahead of timeslot competitor CNN Tonight (a replacement of Cuomo Prime Time with rotating hosts after Chris Cuomo was fired from the network)[4] and behind Fox News Channel's Hannity.[5]

In June 2022, MSNBC announced that MSNBC Prime would be replaced by a new show hosted by Alex Wagner beginning on August 16.[5] On August 3, MSNBC announced that the program would be titled Alex Wagner Tonight.[6]

Wagner stated that the show would aim to combine Maddow's "intellectual rigor and informative analysis" with aspects that are representative of her own personal experiences, including more segments in the field and segments on climate change, immigration, and race. The program retains some of Maddow's staff.[7] The series premiere of Alex Wagner Tonight—which featured guests Mark Leibovich, Adam Kinzinger, and Joyce Vance, as well as coverage of Wyoming's Republican primary—was seen by around 2 million viewers.[8]

On January 13, 2025, it was announced that Alex Wagner Tonight would go on hiatus from January 20 to April 30, 2025, with The Rachel Maddow Show temporarily returning to a weeknight scheduling to cover the first 100 days of the second presidency of Donald Trump. During this hiatus, Wagner will be placed on special assignment to report on the repercussions of Trump's policy decisions across the country and internationally.[9]

References

1. Atkinson, Claire (January 31, 2022). "Rachel Maddow to take temporary break from her MSNBC show to work on movie and podcast projects". Business Insider. Retrieved January 31, 2022.
2. Bauder, David (April 11, 2022). "Rachel Maddow returns to MSNBC, will switch to once a week". Associated Press.
3. "'MSNBC Prime' becomes 'Rachel Maddow' replacement four days a week". NewscastStudio. 4 May 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
4. Stelter, Brian (6 December 2021). "With Chris Cuomo gone from CNN, another cable news time slot is up for grabs". CNN. Archived from the original on 2021-12-06. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
5. Hipes, Patrick (2022-06-27). "Alex Wagner To Take Over Rachel Maddow's Time Slot At MSNBC". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-06-27.
6. "Alex Wagner's New MSNBC Show Will Be Titled Alex Wagner Tonight". Adweek.com. 2 August 2022. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
7. Johnson, Ted (2022-08-14). "Alex Wagner Talks About Her Debut As Permanent MSNBC Primetime Host: "This Is Going To Be A Different Show"". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
8. Johnson, Ted (2022-08-17). "Alex Wagner Draws Solid 2 Million Viewers To Debut Of MSNBC Primetime Show; 'Hannity' Tops Timeslot". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
9. Steinberg, Brian (2025-01-13). "MSNBC Ups Rachel Maddow to Five Nights, Sends Alex Wagner Into Field for Trump's First 100 Days". Variety. Retrieved 2025-01-13.

Preceded by All In with Chris Hayes

MSNBC Weekday Lineup (Tuesdays-Fridays) 9:00–10:00 p.m. (ET) midnight – 1:00 a.m. (ET) (replay) 4:00–5:00 a.m. (ET) (replay)

Succeeded by The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell Way Too Early with Ali Vitali