NBC News Overnight

NBC News Overnight was a television news program on the NBC television network airing weekday mornings from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. 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 the rest running obscure syndicated shows and old movies.

Key personalities

NBC News Overnight was the brainchild of NBC News president Reuven Frank, who conceived the show as inexpensive overnight programming after Late Night with David Letterman. Linda Ellerbee and Lloyd Dobyns originally anchored the broadcast. Bill Schechner replaced Dobyns in January 1983. Herb Dudnick was the program's first executive producer and was succeeded by Deborah B. Johnson.

Critical response

NBC News Overnight was widely regarded as one of the smartest television news shows. Appealing to an eclectic audience of college students, nursing mothers, and late shift workers, the show broke the conventional "lowest common denominator" style of most news programs and injected humor into an otherwise boring medium, while providing news analysis usually unseen on other major-network newscasts. The duPont Columbia Awards...
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