Today (U.S. TV Program)

Today (U.S. TV program)

Today (also referred to as The Today Show) is a daily American morning television show on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was the first of its genre on American television and in the world, and is now the fourth-longest running American television series. Originally a two-hour program on weekdays, it expanded to Sundays (currently one hour) in 1987 and Saturdays (two hours) in 1992. The weekday broadcast expanded to three hours in 2000, and to four hours in 2007.

Today's dominance was virtually unchallenged by the other networks until the late 1980s, when it was overtaken by ABC's Good Morning America. Today retook the Nielsen ratings lead the week of December 11, 1995, and held onto that position for 852 consecutive weeks, until the week of April 9, 2012, when it was once again beaten by Good Morning America.

The two main hours of the show alone generate hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue for NBC. In 2002, Today was ranked #17 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.