‘Today’ Marks Al Roker’s 45 Years At NBC; Watch Throwback Video

Denise Petski
·2 min read
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Today celebrated Al Roker’s 45 years with NBC today on the morning show. The beloved weathercaster was described as “the beating heart of this show” during the segment, as his colleagues noted he has set 7,047 wake-up alarms for 3:45 am, been on hand for 27 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades, and contributed to the coverage of 13 Olympics.

A clearly moved Roker told his co-stars that it had been a “very good run”. “I really am very fortunate. Nobody gets to be somewhere this long without friends and people who help you and a team behind you. Nobody does it by themselves. It’s been a very good run,” he said.

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They then cued up a throwback video of Roker’s long NBC career, opening with a segment on penguins at his first job with the network in 1978 at WKYC in Cleveland, which was then an NBC owned and operated station.

After five years in Cleveland, he was promoted to the network’s flagship outlet, WNBC-TV in his hometown of NYC. He began as a weekend weathercaster, and within eight months became the station’s regular weeknight weathercaster, replacing WNBC-TV veteran Dr. Frank Field. From 1983 to 1996, Roker was the regular substitute for forecaster Joe Witte on the NBC News program NBC News at Sunrise. He also substituted on the weekday edition of Today when Willard Scott was ill or away. He landed the regular weekday weather slot on Today beginning on January 26, 1996, where he has remained since.

You can watch the full Today segment below.

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