History
Meet the Press began on radio in 1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, a program to promote The American Mercury, a magazine that Lawrence E. Spivak had purchased in 1939. Before the program aired, Spivak asked the journalist Martha Rountree, who had worked in radio and had worked for Spivak as a roving editor for the magazine, to critique the plans for the new radio show. Based on her advice, Rountree created a new radio program that she called The American Mercury, on October 5, 1945.
On November 6, 1947, while still on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the show was subsequently reincarnated on the NBC Television Network and the title shortened to Meet the Press. The radio version also adopted the new name. Although some sources credit Spivak with the program's creation, Rountree developed the idea on her own, and Spivak joined as co-producer and business partner in the enterprise after the show had already debuted.
Meet the Press was originally presented as a 30-minute press conference with a single guest and a panel of questioners. Its first guest was James Farley, who served as Postmaster General, Democratic National Committee Chairman, and campaign manager to Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the first two terms of the New Deal Administration. Its first host was its creator Martha Rountree, to date the program's only female moderator. She stepped down November 1, 1953, and was replaced by Ned Brooks, who remained as moderator until December 26, 1965. Spivak became the moderator on January 1, 1966, moving from his role as a permanent panelist. He retired on November 9, 1975, and was replaced by Bill Monroe, who stepped down on June 2, 1984.
The program then went through a series of hosts as it struggled in the ratings against ABC's This Week with David Brinkley. Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb (as co-moderators) followed Monroe for a year, followed by Chris Wallace (who would later to go on to a much longer run as host of the rival program Fox News Sunday) in 1987 and 1988. Garrick Utley, then hosting Weekend Today, concurrently hosted Meet the Press from 1989 through December 1, 1991.
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