Morning Joe cohost Willie Geist will be named cohost
of the third hour of Today, B&C confirms. An official
announcement is expected this week.
With the Today promotion, Geist will give up his 5:30
a.m. MSNBC program Way Too Early with Willie Geist but continue to
appear on the 6 a.m. hour of Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika
Brzezinski.
Geist has been a frequent guest host on Today, often
filling in for Matt Lauer. At the 9 a.m. hour, he replaces Savannah Guthrie, whowas promoted to cohost of the 7-9 a.m. hours alongside Lauer after Ann Curry
left the program in June.
The 37-year-old Geisthas cohosted Morning Joe since 2007, after first joining the network
in 2005 as a producer on Tucker Carlson's show, where he would often do on-air
riffs, which caught the attention of Scarborough. He added Way Too Early
in 2009.
There was speculation that Geist, whose contract with MSNBC
expired in October, might re-team with former Morning Joe executive
producer Chris Licht, who now helms CBS This Morning. The Today
job keeps him in the NBCU family, where he occasionally shows up on other
properties like NBC Sports Network and Bravo's Watch What Happens Live.
A spokesperson for Today declined to comment.
