Broadcast
Meet the Press Drives Record Audience
Acclaimed by conservatives and liberals, newsmakers and television critics, Meet the Press consistently makes Monday morning headlines and has become the most quoted television program in the world.
Meet the Press has a long history of interviewing some of the world’s most important leaders and influencers, including every President of the United States since President John F. Kennedy, who once called Meet the Press the "fifty-first state".
On Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012, David Gregory conducted an exclusive interview with President Barack Obama, which drew record audience numbers for Meet the Press, according to Nielsen Media Research data. Over 7 million viewers tuned in for the Dec. 30 edition of Meet the Press, which featured the interview with the President, as well as a roundtable discussion with NBC News special correspondent Tom Brokaw, historians Jon Meacham and Doris Kearns Goodwin, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and NBC News political director and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd. This was the 11th time President Obama has appeared on Meet the Press during his presidency.
Meet the Press is currently led by David Gregory, who has been moderator of the show since Dec. 7, 2008. He is only the tenth person ever to be a permanent host of the program.
Meet the Press is the longest-running program on network television, having made its NBC-TV debut on Nov. 6, 1947. It premiered two years earlier as a radio program with Lawrence E. Spivak, one of the pioneers in broadcasting, as producer and regular panelist. (He retired from the program 30 years later, in November 1975.) With a landmark edition on Feb. 2, 1997, Meet the Press continued its tradition of broadcast leadership by becoming the first network television program to broadcast live in digital high-definition.
Betsy Fischer is the executive producer, Adam Verdugo is the senior producer, Chris Donovan and Ilana Marcus Drimmer are producers of Meet the Press.
