‘Rock Center With Brian Williams’ Canceled
NBC has canceled Rock Center with Brian Williams after two seasons.
The weekly newsmagazine debuted on October 31, 2011, airing on Mondays until January 30, 2012. The show switched to Wednesdays at 9 temporarily before returning to its Monday 10 pm timeslot. The program then moved back to Wednesdays until it was removed from the NBC lineup last May.
When NBC announced Rock Center‘s second season renewal, the program was moved to Thursdays at 10, but it has since been moved again to Fridays at 10. Because of the numerous scheduling changes, Rock Center was never really able to land a steady audience, although it did receive critical acclaim for its reporting. The program also pulled major exclusives for NBC, including an interview with Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, for which NBC sports anchor Bob Costas earned an Emmy. The May 10 episode will feature an exclusive interview with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about his secret weight loss surgery.
Rock Center will air its final broadcast on June 21.
“I’m so proud of the work we did. Our people got shot at for this broadcast. They pulled countless all-nighters. They investigated, cajoled, hustled and cared deeply,” Brian Williams said in a statement. “They won awards, won the respect of their colleagues and produced great television journalism.”
Fortunately for Williams, he still has his day job as an anchor for Nightly News. Rock Center was a second outlet for him, since NBC management felt that he was being underused on that program.
With the cancellation of Rock Center, NBC is now down to one newsmagazine, Dateline, which is largely devoted to crime stories. The program debuted in 1992 with Stone Phillips and Jane Pauley as co-anchors, and went through a few anchor changes in its 20+ year run. Most recently, Lester Holt replaced Ann Curry at the start of season 20, shortly after Curry became a permanent co-host on the Today Show.
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