The Verdict Is In For Dan Abrams

Before his brief sabbatical from on-air work, which took him off the air and running the network, Dan Abrams used to say his was THE program about justice. Well, justice be damned, it’s time for the Verdict. That’s the name of a new 9pmET MSNBC show which has been in on-air development mode for a few months.

“Verdict will be a show about judgments and calls,” Abrams tells TVNewser. “We will assess right from wrong and determine the days winners and losers.”

“Too often shows just invite two people on to debate some issue and the viewer is left with little more than each side’s talking points,” Abrams says. So now he will be the judge. “I will be sure to state where I stand, back it up with facts and render a ‘verdict’ of sorts.”

The show will be heavy on politics, which has dominated MSNBC’s programming since the beginning of the year. Abrams’s “On Their Trail” segment will compare the candidates. “We check the facts, assess the accusations and by the end of the segment we have declared a loser, the candidate who, on that day, is ‘guiltier’ of more misstatements, cheapshots, and blunders,” Abrams says.

But Verdict won’t stray from what Abrams knows best: the law. We “will certainly cover the biggest legal stories, we will focus more broadly on the biggest national debates and controversies.” Verdict will include a segment called The Po-ed Box, “where viewers get the chance to tell me why I’m wrong,” says Abrams. Very Abrams Report 2.0. Now if he would Twitter during the show, that’d be something.

The show also gets a new look. “A ‘pop art’ feel,” Abrams explains. “The goal was to try to differentiate our look from other news shows and there is definitely nothing else out there that looks anything like Verdict.”

The show premieres Monday at 9pmET. One of several programming changes that take effect at the network that day.

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