| Weekend Today | |
|---|---|
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| Also known as | Saturday Today &Sunday Today |
| Presented by |
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| Theme music composer |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Matthew Carluccio |
| Production locations | Studio 1A,NBC Studios,New York City,New York Studio N5, NBC News Studios,Washington, D.C. (Saturday 2020–2023) |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 88–104 minutes (Saturday) 44–52 minutes (Sunday) |
| Production company | NBC News Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | September 20, 1987 (1987-09-20) – present |
| Related | |
| Today | |
Weekend editions ofToday, anAmerican morning news and talk program that airs daily onNBC, began with the launch of the Sunday edition of the program on September 20, 1987. After NBC expandedToday to seven days a week in the 1990s, the nameWeekend Today was adapted primarily for promotional purposes.
The Saturday edition of the program, titledSaturday Today since March 2022, is broadcast live in alignment with the weekday editions ofToday from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m.Eastern Time. Since 2017, however, the Saturday broadcast is frequently shortened by a half-hour (sometimes even shorter/preempted due to earlier sports start times) to accommodatePremier League soccer matches or othersports events that start before 1:00 p.m. ET (and does not air at all during the weekend of golf'sU.S. Open), allowing NBC stations to also accommodate programs fromThe More You Know block displaced from their normal timeslots to fulfilleducational content quotas. Some affiliates outside the Eastern Time Zone air it live, and others ontape-delay. Thus, it may air on some NBC stations as early as 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. local time.
Meanwhile, the Sunday edition, titledSunday Today withWillie Geist since April 17, 2016, airs from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. ET. Some NBC affiliates choose to air local morning newscasts before and after both Saturday and Sunday editions of the program.
The Sunday edition ofToday (titledSunday Today) premiered on September 20, 1987, and was originally hosted byMaria Shriver andBoyd Matson, withGarrick Utley as news anchor andAl Roker as weather anchor. The program was broadcast from 8:00 to 9:30 a.m., followed byMeet the Press. It was the second morning news program to run weekend editions,CBS previously attempted a six-day-a-week morning news program under the "Morning" banner in 1979, the only surviving remnant of which is the newsmagazineCBS News Sunday Morning.
| External videos | |
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 TODAY Begins Sunday Broadcasts, archived byToday onYouTube.Sunday Today premieres on September 20, 1987 withMaria Shriver andBoyd Matson. |
Utley replaced Matson as co-anchor on March 20, 1988. Shriver, weather anchorAl Roker and sports anchorBill Macatee continued with the program. In 1989, production ofSunday Today moved toWashington, D.C. to allow Utley to also serve as moderator ofMeet the Press.
On November 12, 1989, a special edition ofSunday Today featured Utley inBerlin covering the fall of theBerlin Wall earlier that week, with Shriver hosting fromBurbank, California and Roker in New York City. At the end of the broadcast, Utley mentioned that Shriver was leaving the show to go on maternity leave. NBC News national correspondent (and eventual co-anchor of the weekday edition ofToday)Katie Couric,Deborah Norville,Faith Daniels andMary Alice Williams became substitute anchors during Shriver's absence.
Maria Shriver returned toSunday Today from maternity leave on April 8, 1990, and announced that she would be leaving after that day's broadcast. Couric was named interim co-anchor untilMary Alice Williams became the new co-anchor later that month. Production of the Sunday program returned to New York City when Utley leftMeet the Press in 1991.
TheToday franchise expanded to seven days a week with the premiere of the program's Saturday edition on August 1, 1992, coinciding with NBC's replacement of its Saturday morning children's programming block with the three-hour-longTNBC block. The weekend editions were initially titledSaturday Today orSunday Today, as applicable, in order to distinguish them from the weekday program. Beginning in the late 1990s, all editions of the program were officially titledToday, althoughWeekend Today was still sometimes used for promotional purposes. In September 1999, when Ford left for ABC News,John Seigenthaler along with various NBC News reporters rotated alongsideSoledad O'Brien. The Sunday program was once again titled "Sunday Today" when Willie Geist became solo anchor in 2016.
Amy Robach,Natalie Morales andMelissa Francis rotated as news anchor during much of the Brown and Holt era (2003–2007). From 1988 (when Utley became co-anchor) until 2012 (whenJenna Wolfe became the program's news anchor),Weekend Today did not have a designated news anchor. During that time, a differentNBC News,CNBC, orMSNBC correspondent would fill that position each week.Lester Holt left the program in 2015 following his promotion to lead anchor ofNBC Nightly News. (Holt had been anchoring the weekend editions of bothToday andNightly News prior to his reassignment.)
In March 2020, the Saturday edition abruptly relocated production to NBC News'Washington, D.C. bureau, originating from theMeet the Press studio, in order to limit the risk ofCOVID-19 transmission to the anchors via air travel. (Saturday anchors Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker had both been based out of the division's D.C. bureau, though Alexander had been commuting to New York City to anchor that edition from theRockefeller Center studio since being named co-anchor in 2018.)[1] The broadcast permanently relocated to the news division's refurbished D.C. bureau facility (nearCapitol Hill) in December 2020,[2] as one of several NBC and MSNBC programs to broadcast from the building.
The weekend broadcasts continueToday's format of covering breaking news stories, featuring interviews with newsmakers, reports on a variety of popular culture and human-interest stories, covering health and financial issues and presenting the day's national weather forecasts. As with the weekday edition, the program offers visitors to New York City the chance to observe the workings of a live television broadcast firsthand with its windowed studio atRockefeller Plaza. Interaction with the crowd outside the studio is a major part of the program.
Weekend editions are tailored to the priorities and interests of weekend viewers – offering special series such asSaturday Today on the Plaza, featuring live performances by well-known and up-and-coming music acts and numbers fromBroadway theatre productions outside the studio throughout the summer. The Sunday edition also features brief political discussions withMeet the Press moderatorKristen Welker, who also gives a preview of that day's edition of thepolitical discussion show (which followsSunday Today, depending on local scheduling of newscasts, localpolitical affairs programs orbrokered programming that may air between both programs).
Since the adoption of theSunday Today format in 2016, the Sunday edition does not feature a national weather segment; instead the weather reports during that broadcast are presented as live or recorded cut-ins produced by the corresponding local NBC station.
Just like their weekday counterparts, the weekend broadcasts provide local stations theoption to offer brief news and weather segments following the national weather segments (on the Saturday edition) and in designated five-minute slots at the end of each half-hour. (NBC stations that do not produce weekend morning newscasts may opt to either run a taped weather insert, or run the national forecast slide and filler content that occupies the respective local segment slots on the network feed.)
Saturday Today is anchored byPeter Alexander andLaura Jarrett along withJoe Fryer (feature anchor) andAngie Lassman (meteorologist),[3] andSunday Today is anchored byWillie Geist from New York City. Alexander was named co-host on October 27, 2018. On August 9, 2023, Laura Jarrett,NBC News' senior legal correspondent was named new co-host starting September 9, replacing Kristen Welker who became the new moderator ofMeet the Press.
Scherzo for Today was used as the program's closing theme until1990, and theMission bumpers were used until1993 (one of them could be heard as a station break lead-in on NBC'sMeet the Press until2004). TheScherzo for Today theme was iconically accompanied byFred Facey announcing "From NBC News, this isToday..." until his death in April 2003, except for special editions requiring special introductions. Facey's work afterwards was only heard on the now defunctMSNBC programHeadliners and Legends. For a time early in the originalSunday Today run; theScherzo for Today theme was preceded by a recap of clips of stories from the previous week set to "Freightways" by Graham De Wilde.
TheMission cut used as the opening fanfare forToday has opened the program ever since, with two exceptions: in the summer of1994, to mark the debut of Studio 1A, theJohn Williams-composed fanfare was replaced by another opening theme, but the Williams theme returned shortly thereafter. In 2004, the show's producers tried out yet another theme, which drew once again on theNBC chimes as its signature, but the Williams theme returned after only a few weeks. It is by far the most enduring theme in the program's history, having been in use for over two decades. In March 2013, "The Mission" was replaced with a theme by Adam Gubman for Non-Stop Music, which is based partly on theMission theme. A lighter theme employing the NBC chimes is currently used to open the show's 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. half-hour segments and is also used as a closing theme.
Following theSpace Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003, the Sunday edition ofWeekend Today aired a special edition on February 2, with the expanded introduction:
Disaster: The Space Shuttle Columbia. From NBC News, this is a special edition ofToday with Soledad O'Brien atKennedy Space Center inCape Canaveral, Florida and David Bloom at theJohnson Space Center inHouston,Texas.
The next edition on February 3 was also a special broadcast withMatt Lauer at Studio 1A in New York andKatie Couric at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
On April 6, 2003, the death of co-anchor David Bloom in Iraq (caused by ablood clot resulting fromDeep vein thrombosis) dominated that day's edition. Soledad O'Brien,Matt Lauer, and Katie Couric stationed inWashington, D.C. hosted a special edition ofToday in remembrance of Bloom.
WhenPope John Paul II died on Saturday, April 2, 2005, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer anchored the weekend editions ofToday. Lauer anchored fromVatican City with Campbell Brown offering reports by his side. On the day of the Pope's death, Couric anchored a special report on a Vatican statement updating the Pope's dire condition and Lauer reported for the special report anchored byBrian Williams, when the Pope was officially declared dead. Lauer returned to New York City as Couric traveled to Vatican City to co-anchor coverage of the Pope's funeral with Williams.
On April 19, 2008, a special edition ofWeekend Today featuredPope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, billed as "The Pope Visits the USA."Lester Holt andJenna Wolfe moved outside toRockefeller Center to cover the first papal mass atSt. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. However, they moved back to Studio 1A at the 7:30 a.m. half-hour.
On May 10, 2008,Weekend Today featured a special split-location edition covering the wedding ofJenna Bush at the ranch of PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush outsideCrawford, Texas. Co-anchor Lester Holt remained at Studio 1A, whileAmy Robach covered the wedding from Texas.
On June 14, 2008, a special edition ofSaturday Today, anchored by Matt Lauer andTom Brokaw, discussed the death of NBC News Washington bureau chief andMeet the Press moderatorTim Russert.Andrea Mitchell,David Gregory,Pete Williams,Lisa Myers, the moderators ofMeet the Press's competingSunday morning talk shows,Bob Schieffer ofFace the Nation andGeorge Stephanopoulos ofThis Week, andVice PresidentDick Cheney, among others, appeared to share their memories of Russert. The Sunday edition on the following day (June 15), another special edition on the death of Russert was broadcast, hosted by Gregory and Mitchell.
On April 30, 2011,Natalie Morales andAl Roker anchored a special edition ofWeekend Today from London to cover the wedding ofPrince William and the formerKate Middleton.[4]
As part of their coverage ofSuper Bowl XLVI on February 4, 2012, a special Saturday edition was anchored by Lester Holt and Amy Robach from Studio 1A withJenna Wolfe anchoring from that year's Super Bowl location,Indianapolis, Indiana. The following Sunday's edition was another special edition with Matt Lauer live fromWashington, D.C., andAnn Curry, Natalie Morales,Savannah Guthrie, and Al Roker live from Indianapolis.
As part of their coverage ofTerror in Boston, on Saturday, April 20, 2013, a Saturday edition was anchored by Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie from Studio 1A at Rockefeller Plaza and Lester Holt and Erica Hill from Watertown, Massachusetts.
As part of their coverage of the2014 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games, Morales andLester Holt anchored a special edition ofWeekend Today fromSochi,Russia, withErica Hill reading news headlines andDylan Dreyer with weather in Studio 1A.
As part of their coverage of theNovember 2015 Paris attacks, a special Saturday edition was anchored byMatt Lauer andSavannah Guthrie, withSheinelle Jones reading news headlines andDylan Dreyer with weather in Studio 1A, and Al Roker live fromParis. The Sunday edition on the following, another special edition was broadcast withErica Hill live fromParis andHarry Smith as co-anchor, withSheinelle Jones reading news headlines andDylan Dreyer with weather in Studio 1A.
On May 19, 2018, a special Saturday edition was anchored bySavannah Guthrie andHoda Kotb with weather byAl Roker to cover theWedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was live atWindsor,England.[5]
On August 28, 2018, a special Sunday edition was anchored byKristen Welker filling in forWillie Geist to cover the death of Sen.John McCain.
On July 14, 2024, following the 2024attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a special 2-hour edition ofToday aired instead ofSunday Today anchored by Willie Geist and Savannah Guthrie.
The program has more viewers thanABC'sGood Morning America Weekend Edition andCBS'CBS Saturday Morning,[6] but fewer thanCBS News Sunday Morning.[7] During the weekend of September 15, 2012, the weekend edition ofGood Morning America toppedWeekend Today in the ratings for the first time in that program's history.
