NBC News Overnight
NBC News Overnight was a television news program on the NBC television network that aired weekday mornings from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Central) Mondays through Thursdays and 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. (1:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. Central) Fridays from July 5, 1982, to December 3, 1983, for 367 telecasts. The program was noteworthy because during this era, a large majority of TV stations signed off between 1 and 3 a.m., with those few stations that operated 24 hours a day at the time either running syndicated shows and/or old movies.
Key personalities
NBC News Overnight was the brainchild of
Humorous sign offs
During the show's early months, the anchors were known for ending the program in a humorous fashion. For example, during one installment, Dobyns was given a very long, complex word to say and he stumbled over it; at the end of that broadcast, the anchor took a moment to praise his writing staff, only to light-heartedly threaten to "take it all back" if they ever included such a word in his scripts again. Dobyns and then Ellerbee closed each show by saying, "And So It Goes." (which had been Dobyns' closing on Weekend). It became a bit of a catchphrase and was the title of Ellerbee's first autobiographical book.
Critical response
NBC News Overnight was widely regarded as one of the smartest television news shows.
Influences
NBC News Overnight was the inspiration for many news shows. From ABC's World News Now to Countdown with Keith Olbermann, many have attempted to imitate Overnight's signature style of combining hard news features with incisive commentary and light-hearted stories.[6]
The Seven Network in Australia had a similar program with the same name (minus the "NBC") airing overnights on weeknights between 1985 and 1989. Clips from NBC News programs would often be shown within the broadcast.
Cancellation
Despite a loyal audience, the show's rather weak ratings, high production cost (the show cost $3.5 million to produce) and corresponding lack of ad revenue led to the show's demise after only a year and a half on the air. After news of this got out, some viewers sent in money to help defray the costs of producing the program, all of which was returned to the donors. The 367th and final telecast of NBC News Overnight aired on December 3, 1983. The show's timeslot was replaced by either local programming (movies or syndicated shows) or dead air (if a station had signed off after Late Night With David Letterman or the then-new Friday Night Videos on Fridays). In 1984, NBC flagship
NBC's next late-night newscast, NBC Nightside, premiered in 1991; it would last until 1998. Thereafter, NBC stations ran either paid programming, Early Today or local morning newscasts in Nightside's timeslots. The network has not had a standard late-night newscast since then, although Early Today (which originally debuted in September 1999 as a replacement for the early morning newscast NBC News at Sunrise) began acting as a de facto overnight newscast in September 2017, when NBC moved its initial broadcast from 4:00 a.m. ET to 3:00 a.m. ET (extending the program's looping feed for affiliates by an additional hour).
See also
Notes
- ^ "NBC News Overnight: And So It Went | PopMatters". 23 April 2007.
- ^ John J. O'Connor, "TV View; 'Overnight'-Low-Keyed News for Late, Late Viewing," New York Times, Sept. 12, 1982.
- ^ "The Best of 1982," TIME, Jan. 3, 1983.
- ^ "The Best of 1983," TIME, Jan. 2, 1984.
- ISBN 1-57958-411-X
- ^ "Reuven Frank, RIP," TV Barn, Feb. 7, 2006.