Today, usually referred to as The Today Show to avoid ambiguity, is an American morning news and talk show airing weekday mornings on NBC. Premiering on January 14, 1952, it was the first of its genre, spawning similar morning news and entertainment television programs across the country and around the world. The show is also the third-longest running American television series. Today has been the highest-rated morning news and talk show in the United States since the week of December 11, 1995. Originally a two-hour program on weekdays, it expanded to Sundays in 1987 and Saturdays in 1992. The weekday broadcast expanded to three hours in 2000 and to four hours in 2007; it currently airs for two hours on Saturday and one hour on Sunday.
Former "Ten News" newsreader, Jessica Rowe debuted as host on "Today" after a case that prevented her defection to Channel Nine was dismissed in court on December 30, 2005
Host Bill Grundy was very nearly fired after the broadcast of 1 December 1976, when his guests, the punk band The Sex Pistols, uttered the "f-word" numerous times during an interview.
The show began broadcasting from 10 Rockefeller Plaza in 1952. The studio was on street level with huge windows around which passers-by would gather to appear on TV. After a few years, the show moved to a more traditional studio in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the worldwide headquarters of NBC. In 1994, the show relocated to that same glass-enclosed studio, 1-A.
When the show started in 1952, it was seen only in the Eastern and Central time zones, broadcasting three hours a morning but seen for only two hours in each time zone. Later, it aired live for five hours a morning, but it was seen for only two hours in each time zone. Since 1958, the show is tape-delayed for the different time zones. For many years it was a two-hour program from seven to nine ET, until NBC expanded it to three hours (7-10 A.M. Eastern Time/Pacific Time; 6-9 A.M. Central Time/Mountain Time) on October 2, 2000.
