‘Meet the Press’ set debut delayed

NBC News‘ Sunday morning political affairs program “Meet the Press” was originally planning to move to its new Washington, D.C. set Jan. 10, 2020, according to moderator Chuck Todd.

However, NBC News has since delayed that debut date and would eventually debut from its new home Jan. 24, 2021.

Todd is expected to anchor from home Jan. 10, 2021 for at least one week. An exact debut debate has not been determined, insiders told NewscastStudio.

Todd made note that the show was expected to debut its new set “next week” at the end of the Sunday, Jan. 3, 2020 edition of the broadcast, but that will no longer happen as planned.

According to sources, NBC will move “MTP” into Studio N1 in the Capitol Hill building the network has maintained small studios in for years.

The network has had studios and flashcams overlooking the Capitol dome in this low rise building for years, but after a Jan. 20, 2019 fire heavily damaged many of these spaces, the network announced plans to move its entire bureau to an expanded footprint in the facility.

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NBC already opened Studio N5, home of MSNBC shows “Cross Connection” and “The Sunday Show” along with NBC’s Saturday editions of “Today.”

This space is on the eighth floor and is in space the network occupied previously.

There is an additional studio on the seventh floor along with the primary bureau newsroom, which also includes a flashcam insert position.

In addition, NBC is also leasing the first-floor space for “Meet the Press” and additional workspace.

NBC News’ Washington bureau, a key part of the the organization’s news gathering operations was based inside the home of WRC, the network owned station serving the district, for over 60 years. 

On Sept. 18, 2020, the bureau moved its behind the scenes operations out of the building to North Capitol.

“Meet the Press” continued to use its longtime studio inside WRC until as recently as a few weeks ago, as did the Saturday edition of “Today.”

“Weekend Today” moved to N5 Dec. 21, after a week’s delay due to a coronavirus exposure concern.

The set had also become temporary home of select MSNBC programming after the fire. The coronavirus pandemic shifted many of these shows (as well as some editions of “MTP”) to alternate locations.

Even when not in studio, “Meet the Press” has continued to use video on video shots of the LED video panels inside the studio to showcase graphics.