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Early Today is an American morning news program airing on the NBC television network. The program goes out live at 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time Zone for those few stations which start their local news at 4:30 a.m., and is transmitted in a continuous half-hour tape delay loop until 10:00 a.m. ET, when Today begins in the Pacific Time Zone. The program usually airs before local morning newscasts as a lead-in, or in the few markets where a local morning news broadcast is not produced, before the start of Today. The show is updated for any breaking news occurring before 7:00 a.m. ET, while stations throughout the network will join Today in all time zones past that time at their local discretion or network orders for live coverage.

History[link]

Origins[link]

It premiered in 1999 as the replacement for NBC News at Sunrise. Originally produced through the former Fort Lee, New Jersey facilities of NBC's financial-news cable network, CNBC, and focusing on business and financial news (including a modified version of the CNBC Ticker showing stock prices and weather forecasts), the show switched focus to general news in 2004. As part of this change the show was relocated to the Secaucus facilities of MSNBC. It then moved to the network's combined news headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza with MSNBC in October 2007.

Present[link]

MSNBC's First Look, which airs an hour after the 4:00 a.m. taping of Early Today at 5:00 a.m., is a redone version of the network newscast with the same anchors, weathercasters, and segments (the sportscast, anchored by either KNBC's Fred Roggin or Mario Solis and recorded after that station's 11 p.m. newscast for later airing, is aired unchanged on both programs). Some segments are excluded from First Look, mainly the local weather cut-in (which does not appear on all stations that broadcast the program) and a local event call-out featuring a promotion for a city's NBC affiliate, while a story or two on Early Today may not be seen on First Look.

Some NBC affiliates do not air the entire program, and a purposeful sign-off is made by the show at the 24-minute mark in order to allow stations to air an early weather segment or start their morning newscast early, while NBC carries a non-essential human interest or light news story to end the program for those who carry the entire program.

In September 2007, the program, like the rest of MSNBC's operations, moved from its former Secaucus, New Jersey headquarters into the new combined home of MSNBC and NBC News at the GE Building in Manhattan. The master control room of MSNBC to CNBC Headquarters at the NBC Universal Network Organization Center in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

The anchor background on Early Today is a video screen of a sunrise scene; a skycam shot of Manhattan is used for First Look. The name was also used for another early-morning news program produced by NBC News from 1982 to 1983, which featured the cast of NBC's Today at the time -- Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumbel, and Willard Scott. This was replaced in 1983 by NBC News at Sunrise.

The current version of Early Today premiered with current Saturday Today anchor Amy Robach as anchor. On June 29, 2009 with the launch of MSNBC HD, Early Today is now presented in 16:9 high definition, the first early morning broadcast newscast to air in the format.

The program had aired live at 4:30 a.m. ET until March 1, 2010, when the show was moved to first air at 4:00 a.m. ET to allow Eastern Time Zone stations to begin their morning newscasts at 4:30 a.m. with an Early Today lead-out; previously without the new schedule in some cases, the NBC All Night repeat of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon would inexplicably lead into local news with five minutes cut off the former program if the default NBC schedule, in addition to one local half-hour program, was followed by an affiliate overnights. There is also a live version of that show for Pacific Time Zone stations to let local affiliates air their newscasts at 4:30 a.m., although the weather segments uses the West Coast region for its viewers (an example of such is NBC O&O KNTV, which has aired it's newscasts at 4:30 a.m. since late 2008).

International broadcasts[link]

MSNBC and NBC News programming is shown for several hours a day on the 24-hour news network Orbit News in Europe and the Middle East. This includes Early Today and several other shows.

On-air staff[link]

Early Today is the only American early morning network newscast with both a meteorologist and a sports anchor on staff, anchors of ABC's America This Morning and the CBS Morning News act as weather presenters and the latter newscast's anchor also acts as the sports presenter. Presently, Lynn Berry serves as main anchor of the program with Veronica De La Cruz anchoring on occasion. NBC meteorologist Bill Karins (formerly with NBC Weather Plus until shortly before it ceased operations in 2008, and worked on Early Today concurrently with his duties on NBC Weather Plus) does the national and regional weather forecast, and Fred Roggin and Mario Solis of NBC owned-and-operated station KNBC in Los Angeles rotate as sports anchors, taping the segment shortly after KNBC's 11 p.m. broadcast in order to cover all West Coast sports results. The Weather Channel, which is part-owned by NBC Universal, brands its weather forecasts used on the program.

Former staff[link]

Anchors

• Nanette Hansen (1999–2004)
• Natalie Morales (2004; now with Today)
• Amy Robach (2004; now with Weekend Today)
• Contessa Brewer (2004–2005; now with MSNBC's MSNBC Live)
• Kristine Johnson (2005-October 20, 2006; currently main anchor at WCBS-TV)
• Bill Fitzgerald (2006–2007)
• Milissa Rehberger (various quarters)
• Dan Kloeffler (2007–2009)
• Christina Brown (2007–2010)

Meteorologists

• Joe Witte (1999–2003; now at TBD TV in Washington, DC)
• John Elliott (2004; now at WCBS in New York)
• Sean McLaughlin (2004–2005; now at KPHO in Phoenix)
• Rosey Edeh (2004–2005; now reporter for ET Canada)
• Elise Finch (2006; now at WCBS in New York)
• Byron Miranda (2007)
• Todd Santos (2008; now with The Weather Channel)

Business Anchor

• Louisa Bojesen (1999–2008)

See also[link]

• ABC's America This Morning
• CBS Morning News

References[link]

External links[link]

• Early Today, Official information website
• Early Today at the Internet Movie Database