Willie Geist to Join 'Today' as Cohost of 9 a.m. Hour

'Morning Joe' host fills spot left by Savannah Guthrie

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/24/2012 5:10:03 PM

Morning Joe cohost Willie Geist will be named cohost of the third hour of Today, B&C confirms. An official announcement is expected this week.

With the Today promotion, Geist will give up his 5:30 a.m. MSNBC program Way Too Early with Willie Geist but continue to appear on the 6 a.m. hour of Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Geist has been a frequent guest host on Today, often filling in for Matt Lauer. At the 9 a.m. hour, he replaces Savannah Guthrie, who was promoted to cohost of the 7-9 a.m. hours alongside Lauer after Ann Curry left the program in June.

The 37-year-old Geist has cohosted Morning Joe since 2007, after first joining the network in 2005 as a producer on Tucker Carlson's show, where he would often do on-air riffs, which caught the attention of Scarborough. He added Way Too Early in 2009.

There was speculation that Geist, whose contract with MSNBC expired in October, might re-team with former Morning Joe executive producer Chris Licht, who now helms CBS This Morning. The Today job keeps him in the NBCU family, where he occasionally shows up on other properties like NBC Sports Network and Bravo's Watch What Happens Live.

A spokesperson for Today declined to comment.