Shriver to Stay at NBC

NBC News, which lost Connie Chung to CBS News last week, said Thursday that it won’t be losing Maria Shriver. She signed a new four-year contract and was named to co-anchor a prime-time news series that the network is developing.

In addition to the spot on “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”--which Chung would have co-anchored had she stayed at NBC--Shriver will continue to co-anchor “Sunday Today” with Garrick Utley and will anchor the Saturday “NBC Nightly News.”

Shriver, who has been with NBC News since 1986, also will occasionaly fill in for Tom Brokaw on the weeknight “Nightly News” and will be a substitute anchor on “Today” and “NBC News at Sunrise.”

Shriver’s co-anchor on the new NBC magazine series will be former CNN anchor Mary Alice Williams. When the series airs this fall, it will be the first time a two-woman team has anchored a network news series since Linda Ellerbee and Andrea Mitchell teamed up on NBC’s short-lived “Summer Sunday” in 1986.