Steve Kornacki, Chris Matthews Stand at Center of New NBC News Podcasts

Brian Steinberg

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After vowing to press ahead more directly into the world of podcasts, NBC News is readying the launch of three additional audio shows centered around politics.

“Article II: Inside Impeachment” will help listeners understand the impeachment process. The program, new episodes of which are slated to debut Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as people head for their evening commutes, will be hosted by national correspondent Steve Kornacki, debuts today. New episodes could also surface as news demands.

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“Into America,” the host of which has yet to be announced, will focus on the 2020 campaign. And a limited-run podcast featuring MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews,. “So , You Wanna Be President?”will look back at tough moments in various presidential campaigns that helped the candidates win, and is expected to debut in 2020.

NBC News unveils the new programs after unveiling earlier this week an alliance with podcast company Wondery, which will jointly produce, market and distribute new limited series from NBC News and serve as a third-party ad sales representative for the audio programs

The podcasts “connect our brands and our journalism to what is often a younger and out-of-home audience, a complement to the TV portfolio,” says Elisabeth Sami, senior vice president of business development and strategy at NBC News Group. “It’s really additive to the business that we are in today.”

Recent NBC News podcasts include true-crime stories spun from “Dateline” and a series with MSNBC contributor Chuck Rosenberg. The new entries, says Ellen Frankman, executive producer of politics podcasts at NBC News, can help “guide listeners through this really critical moment. We are hoping to come up with podcasts that are essentially helping people to understand the political process that is underway.”

“Article II’ will feature “three a week to the very end,” she says, and listeners will be able to count on correspondent Kornacki to render things more comprehensible for them much as he does with his whiteboard presentations on MSNBC.

“ I am excited to break it all down – not at the big board, but in a new podcast with my NBC News colleagues,” says Kornacki, in a statement. “In every episode of ‘Article II: Inside Impeachment,’ we’ll take a look at the latest in the inquiry, how the process works, what’s important and what it all means for the 2020 election and our country, with plenty of historical context, of course.”

“Into America” is billed as a podcast that “will bring the 2020 campaign trail alive from New Hampshire to Nevada, from the halls of the Capitol to the backyards of swing districts.” It is slated to debut this winter. It is also expected to feature new episodes on a similar three-day-a-week schedule.

The Matthews’ podcast will cultivate individual moments that changed the arc of a campaign, Frankman said, and the anchor will feature interviews with the players involved at the time with various political races.

 

 

 

 

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