Live at Five was WNBC's 5 p.m. weekday newscast broadcasting from NBC Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Center. A mix of news, features and interviews, the Live at Five concept was first introduced in 1979 by WNBC News Director Ron Kershaw and Bob Davis. Their first anchors were Pia Lindstrom and Melba Tolliver. Jack Cafferty joined the anchor chair a few months later. The final broadcast of Live at Five was Friday, September 7, 2007.
Live at Five was born of necessity. The 5 p.m. broadcast was part of a two-hour early news block called NewsCenter 4 which combined features and hard news, and attempted to compete with its competitors' old movies and syndicated programing. When ratings crumbled in 1980, WNBC decided to pour resources into its 6 p.m. newscast, which would feature its best reporters, while the 5 p.m. newscast would be more of an interview and lifestyle show with news headlines at the top of the show.
In October 1980, Sue Simmons joined the WNBC and Live at Five team from Washington's WRC-TV. She has had several co-anchors, or as Sue called them "anchor husbands", including Jack Cafferty, Tony Guida, Matt Lauer, Dean Shepherd and Jim Rosenfield. From 1980 to 1991, legendary NBC announcer Don Pardo of Jeopardy! and Saturday Night Live fame did the talent introductions and other voice overs, usually live in the studio.
In the 1980s, the show was the talk of the town with guests ranging from Jimmy Carter to Orson Welles to Little Richard. The show's impressive guest lineup was fodder for a running joke on Late Night with David Letterman, which taped across the hall in Studio 6A at 30 Rockefeller Center, where Letterman complained that Live at Five got better guests than he did. Today, the show still maintains an impressive guest lineup, with everyone from Broadway stars to NFL football stars to politicians coming to Studio 6B to be interviewed.
Live at Five was originally cancelled in September 1991 and replaced by "News 4 New York at 5", anchored by Simmons and Chuck Scarborough. This format didn't stay long, however - Simmons was paired with Matt Lauer for a new iteration of Live at Five, originating from NBC's Today Show Window on the World studios. Shortly afterwards, Live at Five was moved back to 30 Rock and adopted a more traditional news-based format in September 1993.
In 2005, Jim Rosenfeld jumped ship to return to WCBS-TV. His replacement was Perri Peltz, who worked for WNBC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Interestingly though, the 5 p.m. edition of WABC-TV's Eyewitness News has two female anchors; first with veterans Roz Abrams and Diana Williams , then with Sade Baderinwa when Roz went to WCBS-TV in 2004; and in April 2006, WCBS switched to the two females at 5pm format with Roz Abrams and Mary Calvi until November 6, 2006. At one point in time, three major market stations had leading female anchors at 5:00 p.m.
Several stations throughout the United States (among them many NBC affiliates) attempted to copy the Live at Five format or just rebranded their newscast "Live at Five" or some variant thereof.
WNBC's Live at Five was discontinued in favor of a new 7 P.M. newscast anchored by Chuck Scarborough starting on September 10, 2007. EXTRA replaced Live at Five at its former timeslot. [1] For a while, WNBC moved its 5:30 newscast back to 5 PM (moving Extra to 5:30), but did not return the Live at Five name to the newscast. Once again, Sue Simmons anchors, with David Ushery as co-anchor. Currently, News 4 New York at 5 airs at 5 P.M. with News 4 New York at 6 airs at 6 P.M.
In 2011, WNBC's Newcast returned it's 5 PM Newscast as "News 4 at 5" moving Extra to 7:00 PM.