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Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
Rising NBC News star Tom Llamas ruffles co-workers' feathers with 'challenging' management style
The new face of NBC News, Tom Llamas, has brought 'a much more hands-on and hard-charging' approach to the program than that of his predecessor Lester Holt, a new report has revealed. The no-nonsense style is reportedly upsetting staffers used to a more laid-back approach from Holt, multiple people 'familiar with the' matter told Breaker. Llamas, in contrast, is more aggressive, the insider accounts claimed. 'He has a management style that has been extremely challenging on some of the team,' one staffer said of Llamas, 46. 'He challenges people to do their best, to think more deeply about the editorial process,' a correspondent added. 'It helps us to raise our game. The expectations are high, but they should be.' A producer further told Daily Mail: 'His energy is infectious, he raises the bar for everyone.' The rising star's executive producer, Meghan Rafferty, called it 'super fun' working with Llamas', during a lunchtime meeting at 30 Rock Tuesday. There, she told staffers she was leaving to join MSNBC's new parent company Versant. Holt, 66, left the program last spring after ten years at the helm and was well-liked by viewers. Llamas now has his work cut out for him to try and catch up with ABC World News Tonight's David Muir, who last week scored his biggest ratings win over NBC Nightly News in more than a year. Llamas, once Muir's protégé, has done well with younger viewers, occasionally his older rival in the key 25-54 year-old demographic twice since his start in June. That age group is particularly sought by advertisers because it tends to have higher disposable income. He has also continued to anchor his other show, NBC News Now's Top Story, where there has been virtually no turnover turnover since he started hosting in 2021, sources told Daily Mail. But Holt, a fixture in American households for more than a decade, was a major loss. The 66-year-old newsman remains at the network with Dateline - a decision he told Variety in May stemmed from a deep-rooted desire to get his hands dirty with stories that do not demand a desk. Insiders told Breaker that Rafferty's move, similarly, stemmed from a desire to avoid the daily rat race of producing a show that requires a certain style of leadership. Llamas' style - at least compared to Holt's 'low-key and unassuming' style that the New York Times talked up in a profile penned in 2019 - has been difficult for some to digest. He's been in the hot seat for just eight weeks. Previously, before joining NBC News in 2021, he worked under Muir as a weekend host on World News Tonight. The show, once second-place to NBC Nightly News, is comfortably in first place with 7.272 million average total viewers as of the week of July 21, new Nielsen numbers show - much more than Llamas' 5.6 million. June was also ABC's biggest ratings win in three decades for the second quarter, continuing a trend of dominance started by Muir after he succeeded a then second-place Diane Sawyer. Llamas' strides against Muir, 51, with winning over younger viewers, however, unsettled ABC News bosses who regard Muir as the network's crown jewel, sources told Daily Mail last month. Llamas, 46, previously told The Washington Post of his desire 'to be number one.' 'It's not easy,' he said. 'But it's something I think we can do.'
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Daily Mail
Rising NBC News star Tom Llamas 'stuns co-workers with "aggressive and extremely challenging" management style'
The new face of NBC News, Tom Llamas, has brought 'a much more hands-on and hard-charging' approach to the program than that of his predecessor Lester Holt, a new report has revealed. The no-nonsense style is reportedly upsetting staffers used to a more laid-back approach from Holt, multiple people 'familiar with the' matter told Breaker. Llamas, in contrast, is more aggressive, the insider accounts claimed. 'He has a management style that has been extremely challenging on some of the team,' one staffer said of Llamas, 46. 'He challenges people to do their best, to think more deeply about the editorial process,' a correspondent added. 'It helps us to raise our game. The expectations are high, but they should be.' A producer further told Daily Mail: 'His energy is infectious, he raises the bar for everyone.' The rising star's executive producer, Meghan Rafferty, called it 'super fun' working with Llamas', during a lunchtime meeting at 30 Rock Tuesday. There, she told staffers she was leaving to join MSNBC's new parent company Versant. Holt, 66, left the program last spring after ten years at the helm and was well-liked by viewers. Llamas now has his work cut out for him to try and catch up with ABC World News Tonight's David Muir, who last week scored his biggest ratings win over NBC Nightly News in more than a year. Llamas, once Muir's protégé, has done well with younger viewers, occasionally his older rival in the key 25-54 year-old demographic twice since his start in June. That age group is particularly sought by advertisers because it tends to have higher disposable income. He has also continued to anchor his other show, NBC News Now's Top Story, where there has been virtually no turnover turnover since he started hosting in 2021, sources told Daily Mail. But Holt, a fixture in American households for more than a decade, was a major loss. The 66-year-old newsman remains at the network with Dateline - a decision he told Variety in May stemmed from a deep-rooted desire to get his hands dirty with stories that do not demand a desk. Insiders told Breaker that Rafferty's move, similarly, stemmed from a desire to avoid the daily rat race of producing a show that requires a certain style of leadership. Llamas' style - at least compared to Holt's 'low-key and unassuming' style that the New York Times talked up in a profile penned in 2019 - has been difficult for some to digest. He's been in the hot seat for just eight weeks. Previously, before joining NBC News in 2021, he worked under Muir as a weekend host on World News Tonight. The show, once second-place to NBC Nightly News, is comfortably in first place with 7.272 million average total viewers as of the week of July 21, new Nielsen numbers show - much more than Llamas' 5.6 million. June was also ABC's biggest ratings win in three decades for the second quarter, continuing a trend of dominance started by Muir after he succeeded a then second-place Diane Sawyer. Llamas' strides against Muir, 51, with winning over younger viewers, however, unsettled ABC News bosses who regard Muir as the network's crown jewel, sources told Daily Mail last month. Llamas, 46, previously told The Washington Post of his desire 'to be number one.' 'It's not easy,' he said. 'But it's something I think we can do.'
Scotsman
29-07-2025
- Scotsman
The Man on the Endless Stair by Chris Barkley review: 'an ambitious first novel'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... This is a first novel, and an ambitious one. This means that one should treat it carefully, indeed gently, neither hailing it as a masterpiece (which very few novels are) or condemning it as pretentious and confused. In truth, it's a mixture, now compelling, now irritating. Chris Barkley The publishers describe it as 'Agatha Christie meets Italo Calvino' – certainly an attractive idea. Still, the detective side of the novel lacks Christie's ruthless morality, while the Calvino side doesn't quite achieve the Italian novelist's ability to make the fantastical appear as natural as our home town. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad However, the somewhat extravagant comparison does say something about the novel. It is set on a Scottish island, murders take place while there is no communication with the mainland, and there is fantasy presented as realism. The novel is set a few years after the end of the Second World War. Euan, a veteran of the Normandy Campaign and now an aspiring Scottish novelist, has caught the attention of Malcolm Furnivall, a successful author of highbrow crime novels. (They sound like the sort of thing that CS Lewis's friend Charles Williams used to write.) Euan has written an article about Malcolm in Cyril Connolly's magazine, Horizon. All this is excellent fooling and agreeably done, even if Malcolm is an absurd and unconvincing character. The same may be said of his island, where he has built a mansion, already falling into disrepair; his books are written in a 'writing shed' in the grounds. Fair enough, though the shed with its tunnels in the basement is not very convincing. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Malcolm, finding his powers failing, drenched in whisky too, is seemingly stuck on what should be the final volume of what sounds like a sadly pretentious sequence, and so he invites Euan to the island, where he will be, as it were, consecrated as his heir. Malcolm has a son and daughter, also a wife and various hangers-on, all of whom may resent Euan. But Malcolm makes it clear that Euan is to be entrusted with the work of completing his last manuscript. This is not a popular decision. Then Malcolm is shot and – the Christie touch – the telephone line to the mainland goes dead. Moreover, the manuscript cannot be found. Euan has to search for it and try to solve the murder. He sets about it energetically, if not all that intelligently. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad So The Man on the Endless Stair becomes a quest novel, as Euan tries to find a way through the maze. His method is not the best: he throws out accusations without evidence. Well, he is of course confused, and his own mind is as disturbed as Malcolm's for he is obsessed with a sister who vanished years ago. Still, even if his quest teeters at times on the brink of absurdity, as other characters disappear and his own life is threatened, it's all entertaining enough. Sometimes Barkley writes very well, sometimes badly; he has the tiresome habit, one even school teachers warn their pupils against, of saying 'I decided to do etc'. Don't say decide, one tells pupils, just do it. The plot is extravagant, conversations often absurd, and yet one keeps reading and doing so with pleasure. Barkley has imagination and talent, and one has to remember this is only his first novel. It's confused and confusing at times, but he is richly talented and, with self-discipline, will write better.
