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Al Roker celebrated his 45th anniversary at NBC on The Today Show this morning, where co-hosts Craig Melvin, Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Sheinelle Jones spoke to his journey at the network.
Guthrie noted that Roker first began in 1973 at NBC’s owned-and-operated station WKYC in Cleveland. This led to a promotion to WNBC-TV five years later, and he eventually secured a regular position on TODAY in 1996, per Deadline.
“Al, my friend, you are the beating heart of this show,” Guthrie gushed, prompting Kotb to add, “The heart and the soul.”
They also discussed Roker’s milestones “by the numbers,” informing viewers that over the course of the past 45 years, the anchor has had 7,047 3:45 a.m. wake-ups, and has broadcast from 27 Thanksgiving Day Parades and 13 Olympic Games.
Kotb pointed out that Roker was the first person most of them met at Today and commended him for his ability to always make new hires “feel included and loved,” to which he replied that he “knew what it was like to be the new guy.”
Those who tuned into TODAY this morning caught a glimpse of footage from Roker’s time at WKYC, which featured him reporting on penguins live from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
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After Melvin asked Roker “what stands out” to him after 45 years at the network, Roker highlighted how “fortunate” he is to have his co-workers, noting, “nobody does it by themselves.”
“Nobody gets to be somewhere this long without friends and people who help you and a team behind you,” he explained.
This momentous occasion comes on the heels of Roker returning to host this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade following his absence from the annual parade in 2022 due to a nearly fatal health scare.
“I felt, in a sense, badly because I ruined Thanksgiving for the family and I was not going to let that happen for Christmas,” he told Michele Norris on her Your Mama’s Kitchen podcast last month.
The Today Show airs on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on NBC.
