NBCUniversal opens new D.C. bureau

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NBCUniversal News Group fully opened its new Washington, D.C. bureau with the network’s Sunday morning political affairs program “Meet the Press” debuting its new set on Jan. 24, 2021.

The new bureau spans six floors and 80,000 square feet, with seven studios for programming across NBCU News Group’s flagship networks: NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC. Also in the bureau are NBC News Channel, Noticias Telemundo, and Sky News’ Washington operations.

Nine programs across NBC News and MSNBC will begin broadcasting from the new bureau in 2021 in addition to “MTP,” including “Weekend Today” with Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker on NBC News. Plus, programming across MSNBC primetime, dayside, mornings and weekends will originate from there, including “The ReidOut” with Joy Reid, “MTP Daily,” “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” “MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson,” “Way Too Early” with Kasie Hunt, “The Cross Connection” with Tiffany Cross and “The Sunday Show” with Jonathan Capehart.

The bureau is currently operating with reduced staff in the building due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Not all shows are originating from the primary studios yet either, also due to the pandemic. Others are produced in studio on same days and from alternate setups on others.

The bureau will also serve as home base for special programming for “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and NBC News Special Reports, and MSNBC special coverage for future major Washington events like inaugurations, State of the Union Addresses, and more.

The spacious studios and modern workspaces will be the headquarters for more than 400 NBCU News Group employees, including the networks’ White House, Capitol Hill and political units; the investigative, national security, Pentagon, Justice Department, foreign affairs, transportation reporting teams; the network’s Washington-based NBC News Digital operations and producers for its main programs.

CNBC, which has had an editorial presence in Washington since the network’s debut in 1989, will continue to intensify its focus on the intersection of business and politics. The new space will offer the network heightened technology and allow for further expansion of CNBC Digital’s politics team and improved direct broadcast coverage of the latest news happening in the nation’s capital.

The move to the new bureau reaffirms Noticias Telemundo’s commitment to providing Latinos with comprehensive and reliable news from the nation’s capital. Since 1996, Noticias Telemundo’s Washington-based reporting has led to distinctive Spanish-language news coverage of the issues most important to U.S. Hispanics, including politics, the economy and immigration. The new space provides Noticias Telemundo with enhanced tools and resources to continue being the leading news provider for U.S. Hispanics.

The move follows more than 60 years of NBC News broadcasting from the historic 4001 Nebraska Ave. studios where President Eisenhower joined NBC President Robert Sarnoff in 1958 for the formal dedication of the network’s Washington operations.

The famed bureau was the location of the second Nixon-Kennedy debate, the first television appearance of The Muppets, and was home to the longest running program in television history, Meet the Press, for several decades.

A plaque still adorns the entrance of 4001 Nebraska Ave. dedicated to Ted Yates, an NBC News producer killed covering the Six-Day War in 1967. David Bloom, an NBC News correspondent who died on assignment during the Iraq War in 2003, was also based at the Nebraska Ave. location.

Over the years, news broadcast legends like David Brinkley, Tim Russert, Irving R. Levine, Robert Hager, Gwen Ifill, John Palmer, Judy Woodruff, Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, Brian

Williams, Chris Wallace, Tom Brokaw, Savannah Guthrie and more have all called the storied bureau home.