NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations report to the president of NBC News, Rebecca Blumenstein. The NBCUniversal News Group also comprises MSNBC, the network's 24-hour general news channel, business and consumer news channels CNBC and CNBC World, the Spanish language Noticias Telemundo and United Kingdom–based Sky News.[1]
This article is about the news division of NBCUniversal. For the news website, see NBCNews.com. For the cable news channel, see MSNBC.News division of
Rebecca Blumenstein (President)
February 21, 1940
- West Coast Headquarters, Universal City, California
- Governmental Affairs Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
- European Headquarters, London, UK
- Asia Pacific Headquarters, Singapore and Hong Kong
Worldwide
NBC News International
NBC News aired the first regularly scheduled news program in American broadcast television history on February 21, 1940. The group's broadcasts are produced and aired from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NBCUniversal's headquarters in New York City.
The division presides over America's number-one-rated newscast,[2] NBC Nightly News, the world's first of its genre morning television program, Today, and the longest-running television series in American history, Meet the Press, the Sunday morning program of newsmakers interviews. NBC News also offers 70 years of rare historic footage[3] from the NBCUniversal Archives online.
History[edit]
Caravan era[edit]
The first regularly scheduled American television newscast in history was made by NBC News on February 21, 1940, anchored by Lowell Thomas (1892–1981), and airing weeknights at 6:45 p.m. It was simply Lowell Thomas in front of a television camera while doing his NBC network radio broadcast, the television simulcast seen only in New York.[4] In June 1940, NBC, through its flagship station in New York City, W2XBS (renamed commercial WNBT in 1941, now WNBC) operating on channel one, televised 30¼ hours of coverage of the Republican National Convention live and direct from Philadelphia. The station used a series of relays from Philadelphia to New York and on to upper New York State, for rebroadcast on W2XB in Schenectady (now WRGB), making this among the first "network" programs of NBC Television. Due to wartime and technical restrictions, there were no live telecasts of the 1944 conventions, although films of the events were reportedly shown over WNBT the next day.
About this time, there were irregularly scheduled, quasi-network newscasts originating from NBC's WNBT in New York City, (WNBC), and reportedly fed to WPTZ (now KYW-TV) in Philadelphia and WRGB in Schenectady, NY. Such as, Esso sponsored news features a well as The War As It Happens in the final days of World War II, another irregularly scheduled NBC television newsreel program which was also seen in New York, Philadelphia and Schenectady on the relatively few (roughly 5000) television sets which existed at the time. After the war, NBC Television Newsreel aired filmed news highlights with narration. Later in 1948, when sponsored by Camel Cigarettes, NBC Television Newsreel was renamed Camel Newsreel Theatre and then, when John Cameron Swayze was added as an on-camera anchor in 1949, the program was renamed Camel News Caravan.
In 1948, NBC teamed up with Life magazine to provide election night coverage of President Harry S. Truman's surprising victory over New York governor Thomas E. Dewey. The television audience was small, but NBC's share in New York was double that of any other outlet.[5] The following year, the Camel News Caravan, anchored by John Cameron Swayze, debuted on NBC. Lacking the graphics and technology of later years, it nonetheless contained many of the elements of modern newscasts.[6] NBC hired its own film crews and in the program's early years, it dominated CBS's competing program, which did not hire its own film crews until 1953.[6] (by contrast, CBS spent lavishly on Edward R. Murrow's weekly series, See It Now[6]). In 1950, David Brinkley began serving as the program's Washington correspondent, but attracted little attention outside the network until paired with Chet Huntley in 1956.[7] In 1955, the Camel News Caravan fell behind CBS' Douglas Edwards with the News, and Swayze lost the already tepid support of NBC executives.[6] The following year, NBC replaced the program with the Huntley-Brinkley Report.
Beginning in 1951, NBC News was managed by Director of News Bill McAndrew, who reported to Vice President of News and Public Affairs J. Davidson Taylor.[8]
Presidents[edit]
Thirteen people have served as president of NBC News during its history: William R. McAndrew (managed since 1951, named president, 1965–1968), Reuven Frank (1968–1973, 1981–1985), Richard Wald (1973–1977), Lester Crystal (1977–1979), William J. Small (1979–1981), Lawrence Grossman (1985–1988), Michael Gartner (1988–1993), Andrew Lack (1993–2001), Neal Shapiro (2001–2005), and Steve Capus (2005 – March 5, 2013). In August 2013, Deborah Turness assumed the role as President of NBC News, becoming the first woman to head the division.[60] In February 2017, Today Show Producer and Executive Noah Oppenheim was named President of NBC News.[61] Rebecca Blumenstein was named President of NBC News on January 10, 2023.[62]
Noted coverage[edit]
NBC News got the first American news interviews from two Russian presidents (Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev), and Brokaw was the only American television news correspondent to witness the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.[83]
International broadcasts[edit]
MSNBC is not shown outside the Americas on a channel in its own right. However, both NBC News and MSNBC are shown for a few hours a day on OSN News in MENA Region.
In the 2000s MSNBC was shown on sister network CNBC Europe, both in scheduled slots and during breaking news, although rebroadcasts of MSNBC have stopped. However, NBC Nightly News and Meet the Press are shown on the channel.
In the Philippines, NBC Nightly News and Today is previously both shown on 9TV (formerly Talk TV and Solar News Channel; now as RPTV), while Early Today was officially dropped from the network in December 2013, but they replaced by the repeats of Inside Edition, while Today dropped it in September 2014 to make room for the weekend children's programming and NBC Nightly News was the last to dropped it in March 2015, due to the firing of Brian Williams as anchor and the move of Lester Holt to main anchor position as well as the anticipation of rebranding of the said network to CNN Philippines in March of the same year (both Nightly News and Today were both previously aired on ETC from 2004 to 2005 and the now defunct 2nd Avenue from 2005 to 2007; Nightly News was later moved to C/S 9 (later Solar TV) from 2008 to 2011, while Today retains it separately on 2nd Avenue until 2011). After five years of not airing it in the Philippine airwaves, both NBC Nightly News and Today returned in November 2020 as the launch programs of TAP TV (NBC Nightly News was later moved to its sister network TAP Edge from January to October 2021, until they returned it to the said network in October 2021). TAP TV may also occasionally aired special coverage from NBC News, including the U.S. Elections every 2 years and the U.S. Presidential Inauguration every 4 years, as well as breaking news during regular broadcasts of Today. NBC Nightly News, along with the full program lineup of NBC, was carried by affiliate VSB-TV in Bermuda.
The Seven Network in Australia has close ties with NBC and has used a majority of the network's imaging and slogans since the 1970s. Seven News has featured The Mission as its news theme since the mid-1980s. Local newscasts were named Seven Nightly News from the mid-1980s until around 2000. NBC and Seven will often share news recourses between the two countries. NBC News has been known to use Seven News reporters for live reports on a developing news story in Australia. Seven News will sometimes also incorporate an NBC News report into its national bulletins. Today, Weekend Today and Meet the Press are all broadcast on the Seven Network during the early morning hours from 3-5 a.m., just before Seven's own morning show Sunrise.
In Hong Kong, NBC Nightly News is live digital television broadcast transmission (or delayed) on TVB Pearl daily from 7:00 AM until 8:00 AM Hong Kong Time (6:00 PM until 7:00 PM New York City Time).
In the United Kingdom, the ITV network used to air segments from NBC Nightly News on their ITV News at 5:30 morning newscast before it was cancelled in December 2012. NBC News share facilities and crew in the UK with ITN, which is the news provider for ITV. NBC News Now is shown as a linear channel on both the Sky and Virgin Media platforms in the UK. NBC News Now has been removed from these platforms as of December 2023 but remains free to view via YouTube.
Theme music[edit]
Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News, and special breaking news reports use movements from "The Mission" by John Williams as their themes.[93] The composition was first used by NBC in 1985 and was updated in 2004.[94] "Scherzo for Today," the third movement, was in use by Today until 2013, when it was replaced by a new theme by Alan Gubman.[93]
