Meet the New NAB Hall of Famer

NBC's Meet the Press, the longest-running show in network TV history--it turns 60 in 2007--will be inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Collecting the honor will be the Sunday morning show's current moderator Tim Russert, who himself just joined the B&C Hall of Fame last month.

NAB President David Rehr called the public affairs show the "benchmark" for the genre.

Russert is the show's ninth moderator. For those who can't tick off the other eight, they were, according to NAB: Martha Rountree, Ned Brooks, Lawrence Spivak, Bill Monroe, Marvin Kalb, Roger Mudd, Chris Wallace and Garrick Utley.

NBC is already well-represented in the TV show category in NAB's Hall of Fame. Past winners include Tonight and Today, as well as SNL and Star Trek, though given that last show's limited run on NBC and world-beating runs in syndication, identifying it with NBC is arguably akin to calling Babe Ruth a Red Sox star. Other TV show inductees include CBS' M*A*S*H and 60 Minutes.

Meet the Press will be inducted April 16 at NAB's annual convention in Las Vegas.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.