Lester Holt’s Dateline Podcast Before & After Debuts With Colin Kaepernick as Networks Push Prestige Interview Audio

Lester Holt's new Dateline podcast, Before & After with Lester Holt, is now live for general listening after its Sept. 14, 2026 premiere—a six-episode interview series built around moments that split a life into what came before and what followed. The debut episode features former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick discussing his decision to kneel during the national anthem and the consequences that followed, according to NBC News' official show page and the episode listing on Apple Podcasts.

The series is positioned differently from Dateline's better-known true-crime narrative miniseries. Instead of reconstructing a case week by week, Before & After leans on long-form conversations with people whose lives changed in an instant—through violence, survival, loss, injustice, or an unexpected turn of fate. NBCUniversal's press materials frame the show as an exploration of endurance, rebuilding, and finding purpose afterward. Alongside Kaepernick, announced guests include actor Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Scofield, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, and Boston Marathon bombing survivor Adrianne Haslet.

Platform listings already reflect the launch cadence. Apple Podcasts shows the Kaepernick episode available to the public (about 39 minutes) and lists a Jeremy Renner installment under Dateline Premium early access, matching NBC's earlier plan to give Premium subscribers a head start. Free listeners were told to expect the first episode on Sept. 14, with subsequent episodes following a weekly drop pattern. Dateline Premium subscribers were offered early access beginning Sept. 7, plus ad-free listening across Dateline's podcast slate.

For Dateline and NBC News, the launch also doubles as brand-extension math. NBC said Before & After is Holt's second original podcast after last year's The Last Appeal, and that Dateline original podcasts have logged more than 43 million downloads in 2026. The broader Dateline podcast portfolio has surpassed 200 million downloads since 2019, per the same company release. Before & After is produced by Dan Slepian and Liz Brown Kuriloff, with Paul Ryan as executive producer and Liz Cole as senior executive producer of Dateline.

The timing puts Holt's series inside a busy mid-September stretch for legacy news brands treating podcasts as appointment audio. On Sept. 13, The Atlantic launched The Permanent Questions, a weekly video podcast hosted by staff writer David Brooks. Two days after Holt's public debut window, CBS News' 48 Hours is set to extend the true-crime podcast push with The Woman in the Woods, hosted by correspondent Erin Moriarty and scheduled to premiere Wednesday, Sept. 16.

Taken together, the Holt premiere and nearby launches underline a familiar 2026 pattern: networks are stacking trusted hosts, recognizable guests, and hybrid distribution to keep appointment listening competitive. Before & After's bet is that Holt's interview presence can carry a more personal Dateline format—starting with Kaepernick and moving through stories of accident, survival, and public trauma.

Listeners can find Before & After with Lester Holt on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and via NBC News' dedicated show page. Dateline Premium remains the path for early and ad-free access.

Related: Podcasts; The iShook Experience podcast launch.

Image: Illustrative podcast mood for Before & After’s debut — original graphic for iShook Daily; not a portrait of Lester Holt or Colin Kaepernick.