Tom Llamas will succeed Lester Holt as anchor of ‘NBC Nightly News’

Tom Llamas will be the next anchor of “NBC Nightly News” after Lester Holt departs the role in the summer.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Llamas, 45, will be the first Latino to anchor a weekday English-language broadcast network evening newscast, a role that will make him a signature personality of NBC News.

Llamas will remain anchor of the nightly program “Top Story,” which streams on NBC News Now at 7 p.m. Eastern. “Nightly” is fed to NBC stations live at 6:30 p.m.

“NBC News Now” anchor Tom Llamas.

(Nathan Congleton / NBC)

Holt announced his plans to leave “Nightly” last week after a 10-year run. He will remain with NBC News as anchor of the true crime newsmagazine “Dateline.”

Llamas, a Miami native, was recruited to NBC News from ABC and had been rumored to be the “Nightly” heir apparent since he arrived.

“Tom has the winning combination of journalistic excellence, passionate storytelling and unyielding integrity — all characteristics that have long been trademarks of ‘NBC Nightly News,’” Janelle Rodriguez, executive vice president of programming for NBC News, said in a statement.

Llamas started his journalism career as a 15-year-old intern at the local Telemundo station in Miami. After graduating from Loyola University New Orleans, he landed a job in 2000 as a production assistant at NBC News. He worked his way up as a correspondent for NBC’s Miami station and a local anchor for WNBC in New York.

Llamas jumped to ABC News in 2014, where he raised his profile covering the 2016 presidential campaign, and the following year was named Saturday anchor of “ABC World News.” He returned to NBC in 2021 and became anchor of “Top Story” in September of that year.

The anchor chair at “NBC Nightly News” has been the most stable of the three network newscasts in recent years. Tom Brokaw took over the solo anchor role in 1983 and stayed for 22 years. Brian Williams took the reins at the end of 2004 and held the job until a scandal over a false statement he made about his Iraq reporting ended his run in June 2015. Holt replaced him.

David Muir is the longest running evening news anchor, taking over “ABC World News Tonight” in September 2014. “CBS Evening News” recently switched from Norah O’Donnell to the duo of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois.

Although the programs no longer have the influence they did before 24-hour news channels and streaming videos were available, they are still among the most watched programs on traditional TV and remain the flagship broadcasts of their networks.