Rashida Jones, a respected news anchor who led MSNBC for four years, will leave cable network NBCUniversal to pursue other opportunities, she told executives and employees on Tuesday.

She will be temporarily replaced by Rebecca Kutler, a veteran news executive with extensive experience managing talent and developing innovative programming concepts. She takes the leadership role at MSNBC as the company not only faces the challenge of covering the Trump administration for its demoralized liberal audience, but also the prospect of being spun off by parent Comcast into a new publicly traded company.

Kutler joined MSNBC in 2022 as senior vice president of content strategy after a long stint at CNN. During her time at the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed outlet, she not only worked as an executive producer for Don Lemon and John King, among others, but also played a role in establishing the likes of Abby Phillip, Van Jones, Chris Wallace and Audie Cornish and Kasie Hunt on the network. She was poised to take a senior role at CNN+, the streaming provider that was abandoned by CNN’s parent company after its founding.

A person familiar with the situation said Jones felt it was time to consider other roles after an intense cycle that included more than just managing a prime-time schedule as the network’s star Rachel Maddow reduced her presence , but also exploring digital projects and live events as linear audiences move to streaming. Others felt she wasn’t outgoing enough with a series of particularly outspoken anchors who felt increasingly free to go on air and condemn decisions made by senior NBC News executives and managers.

The executive swap comes as MSNBC struggles with a significant decline in its ratings. Between the election and the end of 2024, MSNBC’s primetime audience ages 25 to 54 – the demographic most valued by advertisers in news programming – fell by 65%, according to Nielsen. There have been concerns that the channel, which specializes in progressive opinion programming, is suffering from viewer fatigue after Donald Trump won the election for a second term. MSNBC morning hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s decision to meet with President-elect Trump has fueled theories of a backlash from MSNBC’s liberal base.

Jones quickly rose through the ranks at NBC News, where she became known for developing intriguing spectacles and special reports, including a 2019 town hall at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in which Lester Holt moderated a discussion on criminal justice reform. “We’ve never done anything like this before,” Jones said diversity at the time. “This is all about taking the spirit of this civic conversation to a new level.”

That creativity manifested itself at MSNBC, when Jones extended “Morning Joe” by an hour and created a sort of “pop-up” program known internally as “The Avengers,” which featured Maddow at critical moments nationally a panel of MSNBC anchors leads news import.

During her time at MSNBC, she lured former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki to the network, whose presence continues to grow. And she tried to establish a daily news channel separate from MSNBC’s opinion programs. MSNBC has outperformed CNN in many areas on critical news events, a dynamic that has not been the case over the years.

On a call Tuesday morning, employees were told that Kutler would be looking for a new head of news gathering and a new head of talent. And they were informed that the MSNBC name will remain even if the network joins the new company. There have been concerns in recent weeks that the threatened separation of MSNBC and CNBC from NBC News would force major changes that could affect the look and brand of some networks.