MEET THE PRESS, THE LONGEST-RUNNING TV PROGRAM

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Meet the Press, the weekly American television Sunday morning talk show broadcast on NBC that made its debut on a day like today in 1947.

Meet the Press is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk show broadcast on NBC.

It is the longest-running program on American television, though its format has changed since the debut episode on November 6, 1947.

Meet the Press specializes in interviews with leaders in Washington, D.C., across the country, and around the world on issues of politics, economics, foreign policy, and other public affairs, along with panel discussions that provide opinions and analysis. In January 2021, production moved to NBC's bureau on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

The longevity of Meet the Press is attributable in part to the fact that the program debuted during what was only the second official network television season for American television. It was the first live television network news program on which a sitting president of the United States appeared, this occurred on its broadcast on November 9, 1975, which featured Gerald Ford. 

The program has been hosted by 12 moderators, beginning with creator Martha Rountree. The show's current moderator is Kristen Welker, who became moderator in September 2023 following longtime moderator Chuck Todd’s departure.

The hour-long program airs in most markets on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. live in the Eastern Time Zone and on tape delay elsewhere. Meet the Press is also occasionally pre-empted by network coverage of sports events held outside the U.S. The program is also rebroadcast on Mondays at 2:30 a.m. 

Eastern Time on MSNBC, whose audio feed is also simulcast on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio. The program is syndicated by Westwood One to various radio stations around the United States, and is on C-SPAN Radio as part of its replays of the Sunday morning talk shows.

The program's format consists of an extended one-on-one interview with the host, and is sometimes followed by a roundtable discussion or one-on-two interview with figures in adversarial positions, either Congressional members from opposite sides of the aisle or political commentators. A half-hour program for the first 45 years of its history, the show was expanded to 60 minutes starting with the broadcast on September 20, 1992.

More information: NBC

Meet the Press began on radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, a program to promote The American Mercury, a magazine that Lawrence Spivak purchased in 1935. Before the program aired, Spivak had asked journalist Martha Rountree, who had worked in radio and had been employed by Spivak as a roving editor for the magazine, to critique plans for a new radio show. As a result, Rountree created a new radio program that she called The American Mercury, on October 5, 1945.

On November 6, 1947, while still on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the television rights to the program were purchased by General Foods. They began to air the show on the NBC television network with the title shortened to simply Meet the Press. The radio version then adopted the new name.

Although some sources credit Spivak with the program's creation, Rountree developed the idea on her own, and Spivak joined as co-producer and business partner in the enterprise after the show had already debuted.

Meet the Press was originally presented as a 30-minute press conference with a single guest and a panel of questioners. Its first guest was James Farley, who served as Postmaster General, Democratic National Committee chairman and campaign manager to Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the first two terms of the New Deal Administration. 

Martha Rountree served as its first host, the program's only female moderator until 2023. She stepped down on November 1, 1953, and was succeeded by Ned Brooks, who remained as moderator until his retirement on December 26, 1965. 

Spivak became the moderator on January 1, 1966, moving up from his role as a permanent panelist. He retired on November 9, 1975, on a special one-hour edition that featured a sitting president as guest for the first time, in this case Gerald Ford. The next week, Bill Monroe, previously a weekly panelist like Spivak had been years before, took over as moderator and stayed until June 2, 1984.

For the next seven and a half years, the program then went through a series of hosts as it struggled in the ratings against ABC's This Week with David Brinkley. Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb, as co-moderators, followed Monroe for a year, followed by Chris Wallace (who would later go on to a much longer run as host of the rival program Fox News Sunday) from 1987 to 1988. 

Garrick Utley, then hosting Weekend Today, concurrently hosted Meet the Press from 1989 through December 1, 1991. All this occurred despite the increasing ratings of NBC News' other programs (and those of the network generally) during that period. The program originally aired at noon Eastern Time every Sunday (leading into NFL Live incongruously in the fall) before moving to a 9:00 a.m. slot by the early 1990s when it expanded to an hour.

More information: USA Today Entertainment

 If it's Sunday, it's "Meet the Press."

Tim Russert