All Things Considered
All Things Considered (ATC) is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United States, and worldwide through several different outlets, formerly including the NPR Berlin station in Germany.[1] All Things Considered and Morning Edition were the highest rated public radio programs in the United States in 2002 and 2005.[2][3] The show combines news, analysis, commentary, interviews, and special features, and its segments vary in length and style. ATC airs weekdays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (live) or Pacific Time (recorded with some updates; in Hawaii it airs as a fully recorded program) or from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time. A weekend version of ATC, Weekend All Things Considered, airs on Saturdays and Sundays.
This article is about the NPR news program. For other uses, see All Things Considered (disambiguation).Genre
News: analysis, commentary, features, interviews, specials
135 minutes weekdays;
50 minutes weekends approx.
United States
May 3, 1971 –
present
Background[edit]
ATC programming combines news, analysis, commentary, interviews, and special features broadcast live daily from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (3 to 5 p.m. Central Time) (20:00 to 22:00 UTC), and is re-fed with updates until 10 p.m. ET (9 p.m. CT) or 7 p.m. PT (02:00 UTC). Broadcasts run about 105 minutes with local content interspersed in between to complete two hours. In 2005, ATC aired on over 560 radio stations and reached an audience of approximately 12 million listeners each weekday, making it the third most listened to radio program in the United States after The Rush Limbaugh Show and Morning Edition.[2] In September 2010, All Things Considered had an average quarter-hour audience of 1.8 million.[4] ATC is co-hosted by rotating cast of regular anchors; current hosts include Ari Shapiro, Ailsa Chang, Mary Louise Kelly,[5] and Juana Summers.[6]
The first broadcast of ATC was fed to about 90 radio stations on May 3, 1971, with host Robert Conley. During the first week, these stations were not allowed to broadcast the feed "live" but could record it for later broadcast. The first story was about the march on Washington, D.C., and the growing anti–Vietnam War protests taking place there.[7] NPR chose to place its inaugural daily newscast at the afternoon commute timeslot instead of the morning because many of its affiliates at that time did not sign on for the day until mid-morning or afterward.[8] It was not until 1979, by which time most affiliates had expanded their broadcast days to begin at 6 a.m. or earlier, that NPR premiered Morning Edition.
Weekend All Things Considered (WATC) is a one-hour version of the show that premiered in 1974[9] and is broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays at 5 p.m. ET, currently hosted by Scott Detrow.
ATC was excluded from the NPR deal with Sirius Satellite Radio so as not to compete with local stations airing the show.[10]
To coordinate the choice of interview partners in cultural coverage between ATC and other NPR shows (as of 2010: Morning Edition, the weekend editions, Talk of the Nation, and Tell Me More), NPR set up a "dibs list" system around 2005, whereby the first show to declare interest in a particular guest can "reserve" that person.[4]
On March 23, 2020, ATC launched The National Conversation, a live call-in show addressing listener questions about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The program aired from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET on weeknights from the end of March through May 2020.[11]
Similar to Up First, the podcast complement to the network's Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, NPR launched Consider This as a podcast companion to ATC on June 29, 2020,[12] with ATC hosts providing in-depth analysis of a single story each weekday afternoon. National podcast episodes are supplemented in select areas by additional local reporting and analysis from journalists at various NPR member stations, such as Dallas-based KERA.[13] Consider This is also the successor to NPR's weekday afternoon Coronavirus Daily podcast,[14] which had published throughout the spring of 2020. It expanded to weekends on January 8, 2022, with episodes hosted by then-WATC host Michel Martin on Saturdays.[15] The podcast's weekend episode moved to Sundays in May 2023, and as of June 2023 is hosted by WATC host Scott Detrow.[16]
Awards[edit]
Major awards won by the show include the Ohio State Award, the Peabody Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, the DuPont Award, the American Women in Radio and Television Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. In 1993, the show was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, the first[18] public radio program to be given that honor.
In 2017, the first broadcast episode (from 1971) of All Things Considered was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. Recordings in the collection are considered "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."[19]
International broadcasts[edit]
ABC NewsRadio in Australia broadcasts a continuous hour of selected segments from each day's program between 12:00 and 13:00 Australian Eastern Standard Time Monday to Friday. Segments A to D are edited together omitting local NPR news inserts.
NPR Berlin in Germany aired in the local German timeslot, live from the United States.
From time to time, NPR produces and distributes short series of radio pieces. Series that have aired during the show include: