Lester Holt’s son joining NBC’s New York station as afternoon anchor

Stefan Holt, the son of “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt, will soon be able to share a ride to the office with his father.

The younger Holt has been hired by NBC’s New York station, WNBC, to anchor its new 4 p.m. newscast.

Stefan Holt has spent the last five years working for NBC’s Chicago station, WMAQ — just a short walk from the former location of WBBM, where Lester Holt worked before joining NBC News. Stefan Holt was born in Chicago during his father’s 15-year run as an anchor in the city.

The younger Holt started as a reporter and weekend morning anchor and was quickly promoted to anchor the station’s weekday morning and midday newscasts. Before working in Chicago, Holt was an anchor and reporter at WPBF, the ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida, for three years.

Stefan Holt, who is 29, will join WNBC in mid-April, before the debut of the newscast set for late May. NBC is adding the late-afternoon newscasts at its stations in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Connecticut to replace Meredith Vieira’s canceled daytime program.

Lester Holt welcomed his son to New York with a message on Twitter that read, “Congrats to @stefholtNBC So proud of you kid. First lunch in 30 Rock commissary is on me.”

Lester Holt replaced Brian Williams as anchor of “NBC Nightly News” in June after serving as the primary fill-in on the program. NBC has expanded its ratings lead over its evening newscast competition since Holt took the job.

Williams was suspended from the broadcast over false statements he made about his reporting during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. He is now an anchor for NBC’s cable news channel MSNBC.

1:15 p.m.: This story was updated with Stefan Holt’s age and his father’s comment on Twitter.

Follow @SteveBattaglio on Twitter

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