In 60 years, television has gone from black-and-white to color, rabbit ears to satellites, analog to digital and now the iPad. Through all that, one TV show has remained much the same, which seems fitting given its name, "Today."
This week, NBC's "Today" show is celebrating 60 years on U.S. airwaves since its inception on January 14, 1952, when Dave Garroway introduced viewers to the morning news, talk and entertainment program.
It spawned copycat programs, made stars of co-hosts such as Jane Pauley, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, and put weather men like Al Roker on the map. TV has never been the same, experts say.
"The 'Today' show created a template that everyone is still using a half-century later," said Bob Thompson, Television and Pop Culture Professor at Syracuse University.
"When you look at these morning shows, they look an awful lot like they did back on that morning in 1952 when Garroway first went on air," he added.
To celebrate its past and the impact the program has had on U.S. culture, NBC on Thursday is holding a gala red carpet party in its home city of New York, bringing back former "Today" co-anchors such as Couric, Lauer, Bryant Gumbel and Tom Brokaw.
The anchors and hosts will participate in a special lighting of The Empire State building which will shine brightly in tones of red, orange and yellow, the colors of the "Today" rainbow.
Other iconic landmarks and organizations will take part. The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, New York City Fireboats on the Hudson River by the Statue of Liberty, and the waterfalls of Niagara also will be lit with "Today" show colors.
Thompson and others pin the show's long-running success on being a sort of hybrid program -- a mix of hard news, interviews with politicians and celebrities, and softer stories about lifestyle, travel, fashion and fitness.
"The 'Today' show is a conglomeration and aggregation of both the very serious and incredibly trivial and frivolous," Thompson said.
Todd Gold, executive editor at Xfinity TV noted that "Today" became the leader in combining the idea of informing people with a trusted, likeable group of "friends" -- its hosts, anchors and personalities -- with both hard and soft news.
"As serious as (former hosts) Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs were, you got the impression they also liked each other, and that made it really very pleasing in the morning," Gold said. "That was the template carried on right from Tom Brokaw to Jane Pauley to Matt Lauer to Katie Couric, to the present day."
