Joshua Johnson said Tuesday he would step down as host of WAMU and NPR’s national radio show 1A to join MSNBC as an anchor early next year.

“This show is not about me. It’s not about a person,” Johnson said on-air at the end of Tuesday’s show. “It’s about speaking freely, and finding the courage to listen. That principle will remain.”

His last time in the host chair will be on Dec. 20. He will start in his new role at MSNBC in New York in early February.

Johnson has been with the two-hour, weekday show 1A since it launched on January 2, 2017. Conversations about politics and news-of-the-day are its bread and butter, with topics ranging from the impeachment hearings to the national gun control debate. Johnson and his producers also include segments regularly on pop culture and media trends, including “movie club” conversations and discussions of video games, teen magazines, and women in hip-hop.

“He’s really made the show into something special,” said WAMU’s general manager JJ Yore. “I’m disappointed,” Yore said of Johnson’s departure, “but I’ve been through this so many times before. Each time someone leaves, especially someone in a very prominent role, it’s an opportunity to think about what we want to do next.”

WAMU and NPR launched 1A to fill the programming gap left by “The Diane Rehm Show,” which ended its 37-year run at the end of 2016. “We said we want somebody who’s going to be as groundbreaking in our time as Diane Rehm was in her time, and Joshua really fit that bill,” Yore said of the decision to hire Johnson as host of the new program. (Rehm joined WAMU as a volunteer in 1973 and took over its morning talk show five years later.)

The two-hour radio show soon outpaced its predecessor in terms of audience and reach. 1A currently airs on more than 360 stations, 75 percent more stations than the “Diane Rehm Show.” It reaches an estimated 4 million listeners each week and a half million listeners via its podcast.

Johnson’s departure did not come as a complete surprise at WAMU. “I’ve known for a while that the ‘TV monster’ was going to start calling,” said Rupert Allman, the executive producer of 1A. “Part of public radio’s mission is to, you know, surface new talent. We know our role. It’s a competitive marketplace out there.”

Johnson got his start in journalism as a reporter for the Miami Herald. He worked as a newscaster and host at KQED, the NPR member station in San Francisco, before moving to Washington for 1A.

Throughout his time in public radio, Johnson kept one eye trained on his career dream of working in television. He filled in as the host of the MSNBC weekend morning show “Up” late last year, and WAMU hired consultants to coach Johnson on his television appearances.

Yore and his NPR counterparts were concerned about the optics of a public media personality hosting on a left-leaning network, so his first stint as a guest-host on “Up” was also his last.

“I think that kind of set Joshua on a course of really having to think more deeply about what his future was and what his choices are,” Yore said. Johnson continued to appear as a guest on cable news shows, and conversations about a full-time role with MSNBC became more serious.

MSNBC has not released any details on what exactly Johnson’s role will be.

For his part, Johnson said he thinks the new show will cover the 2020 election heavily, while also providing “release valves” to remind viewers that “there’s more to life than the election.”

Johnson also noted that MSNBC has not expressed any interest in him providing more of a political bent along the lines of Rachel Maddow. “They’ve never asked me to be anything but the person I am on 1A,” he said. “So in a way, the whole process is a validation of what we [at 1A] are doing now — that this not only works, but it’s caught the attention of some people who recognize the value of this kind of journalism.”

The 1A host chair will be temporarily filled by Todd Zwillich, a national politics reporter and interim host of WNYC’s “The Takeaway.” The station has already begun the search for a new host with the hope of naming a replacement before March 3 — the Super Tuesday when more than a dozen states hold presidential primaries.

“You get to talk to the country five days a week,” Allman said. “It’s a great gig.”

This story originally appeared on WAMU. Mikaela Lefrak reported this story under the guidance of News Director Jeffrey Katz. WAMU’s senior executives were not allowed to review what was reported until it was published.