NBC shakes up ‘Meet the Press’ leadership team as streaming push continues

More changes are coming to NBC’s “Meet the Press” as the network dedicates a growing number of resources to streaming.

The show’s current executive producer, John Reiss, will serve as executive producer of “Meet the Press Reports,” a political news and talk program on the network’s streaming channel NBC News Now, which launched in 2020.

NBC hired David P. Gelles to replace Reiss as executive producer of the Sunday broadcast on television. Gelles, who had previously worked at NBC, rejoins the network from CNN, where he had overseen all of CNN’s political and special events programming since 2016 and helped launch several shows for that network’s now-defunct streaming service CNN+.

The network also said that Melissa Frankel will remain the Executive Producer of Meet the Press NOW, the daily show on NBC News NOW.

The news was shared with network staff in a memo on Wednesday from Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of “Meet the Press.”

“John’s new role is a big step for us as a brand and I take it as an encouraging show of support from leadership that we’re able to dedicate a singular leader to Meet the Press Reports,” Budoff Brown wrote. “I know how hard the whole team has worked to make the show a reality, and it’s my hope that this new structure will begin to ease some of the very real constraints around staffing and workload we’ve experienced in recent seasons.”

Moderator and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd also praised Reiss’s work on the longest-running show in television history.

“I can’t imagine a steadier partner to have had on Sundays over during this tumultuous period of politics. John’s sixth sense for what makes a good news broadcast, and an unflappable devotion he has to good storytelling, have kept us a step ahead of our peers for six years now,” Todd said.

In a note of his own to staff, Reiss said he will be “concentrating on growing and expanding” “Meet the Press Reports” and working on a number of other projects for the network’s streaming services.

NBC, like each of the other major television networks, has invested heavily in streaming over the last several years, moving Todd’s daily MSNBC show to NBC News Now earlier this year.