SHOW: The TODAY Show

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/

NBC News pioneered the morning news program when it launched TODAY in 1952 with Dave Garroway as host. The live broadcast provides the latest in domestic and international news, weather reports, and interviews with newsmakers from the worlds of politics, business, media, entertainment and sports. <br> <br> After more than 48 years of the standard two-hour format, the third hour of TODAY was launched in October of 2000, followed by the fourth hour in September 2007, making TODAY the only four-hour hour national morning show broadcast. The program is unparalleled in its ratings dominance in the morning news arena, serving as America’s overwhelming favorite since 1995. <br> <br> In June 1994, TODAY moved from its longtime home at New York’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza to a stunning new site next door: NBC News’ glass-walled, ground-floor production facility at the corner of 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza. The facility brings to mind the TODAY of the early 1950s, which also had its studio windows facing the streets of New York City. The three-story, 18,000-square-foot home of TODAY now attracts thousands of visitors each year to peer into its windows and become part of TODAY’s broadcast. <br> <br> TODAY is also renowned for providing its audience with a window on the world by broadcasting from remote locations around the globe. The program has originated from countless countries and has canvassed our nation. For what has become one of the program’s trademark series, TODAY has taken viewers to exotic locations for its “Where in the World is Matt Lauer” trip. Co-anchor Matt Lauer has traveled to Easter Island, Machu Picchu, Bangkok, Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, Egypt, Mount Everest, and Laos, just to name a few. In September 2000, TODAY spent three weeks in Sydney, Australia, providing live coverage of the 27th Olympiad. The trip began a tradition for the show to broadcast live from the host city for each of the following Olympic Games.<br> <br> Since the program’s premiere broadcast on January 14, 1952, TODAY’s hallmark has been its ability to revise an entire edition to bring viewers breaking news as it happens. TODAY delivered immediate coverage of such news events as the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the tsunami that wreaked havoc in a dozen Asian nations, and the September 11 terrorist attacks. <br> <br> Jim Bell is the executive producer of TODAY.<br> <br> (MSNBC.com)