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Weekend TODAY

The Weekend TODAY Show is slightly different from the regular TODAY Show.

Weekend Today

The weekend broadcasts continue the Today tradition of covering breaking news, interviewing newsmakers, reporting on a variety of popular-culture and human-interest stories, covering health and finance issues and presenting the latest weather reports. The show airs from 7:00 a.m. EDT until 9:00 a.m. EDT, although many local stations choose to air locally-branded news programs at 8:00 a.m. EDT. Sunday Today airs at 8:00 a.m. EDT, lasting an hour. In addition, the show offers visitors to New York City a chance to observe firsthand the workings of a live television broadcast with its windowed studio on Rockefeller Plaza. Interaction with the crowd outside the studio is a major part of the program.

Originally, Weekend Today only aired on Sunday. The Sunday edition of the show premiered on September 20, 1987. Five years later, on August 1, 1992, the Saturday edition made its debut, expanding the broadcast schedule of the Today show franchise to seven days a week. The program is broadcast from Studio 1A in Rockefeller Plaza in New York, although Sunday Today originated from Washington for a few years.

Weekend editions are tailored to the priorities and interests of weekend viewers—offering special series such as Saturday Today on the Plaza, featuring live performances by the biggest names in music and Broadway outside the studio throughout the summer.

Amy Chiaro is the acting executive producer of Weekend Today and Andrea D’Ambrosio is its Senior Producer.

Anchors

Anchors Lester Holt and Campbell Brown.

Anchors Lester Holt and Campbell Brown.

Previous anchors

Sunday Today anchors included:

Weekend Today anchors include:

News anchors (rotate weekly)

Weather Reporters

Theme music

Scherzo for Today was used as the program’s closing theme until 1990, and the Mission bumpers were used until 1993. (One of them could be heard as a station break lead-in on NBC’s Meet The Press until 2004.) The Today Show opening fanfare has opened the program ever since, with two exceptions. In the summer of 1994, to mark the debut of Studio 1A, the Williams-penned 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 the NBC 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 now been in use for over two decades.

The Scherzo for Today was iconically accompanied by Fred Facey announcing “From NBC News, this is Today…” until his death in April 2003, except for special editions requiring special introductions. Facey’s work is now only heard on the weekend editions of NBC Nightly News with John Seigenthaler and on the MSNBC program Headliners and Legends.

Currently, a lighter theme employing the NBC chimes is used to open the show’s 7:30 and 8:30 half-hour segments, and also used as a closing theme.

Special editions

Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003, Weekend Today aired a special edition on Sunday, February 2, with the expanded introduction

“ Disaster: The Space Shuttle Columbia. From NBC News, this is a special edition of The Today Show with Soledad O’Brien at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida and David Bloom at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. ”

The next day was also a special edition with Matt Lauer at Studio 1A in New York and Katie Couric at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

When Pope John Paul II died on Saturday, April 2, 2005, Couric and Lauer anchored the weekend editions of The Today Show. Lauer anchored from the Vatican 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 by Brian Williams when the Pope was officially dead. He returned to New York as Couric traveled to Vatican City to co-anchor coverage of the Pope’s funeral with Williams.