Al Roker Celebrates 45 Years with NBC: ‘Very Fortunate’

Published: December 12, 2023

Al Roker Celebrates 45 Years with NBC: ‘Very Fortunate’

By Movieguide® Contributor

Al Roker celebrated 45 years with NBC this week.

In honor of his achievement, the TODAY show put together a throwback video that featured clips from 1978 when Roker’s career began.

Fellow host Savannah Guthrie said, “Al, my friend, you are the beating heart of this show.”

“The heart and soul,” Hoda Kotb chimed in.

“I really am very fortunate. Nobody gets to be somewhere this long without friends and people who help you and a team behind you. Nobody does it by themselves,” Roker said to fellow colleagues. “It’s been a very good run.”

Craig Melvin told Roker, “45 down, 45 to go!”

We are celebrating TODAY’s Al Roker 45th anniversary at NBC! @alroker has had more than 7,000 wake-ups at 3:45am, 27 Thanksgiving Day parades, 13 Olympics and more! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/0qE98T77ri

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 11, 2023

According to TVLine, “Roker’s career with NBC began in 1978 at WKYC in Cleveland, which at the time was an NBC owned-and-operated station. In late 1983, he was named the regular weeknight weathercaster at WNBC-TV in New York, replacing 27-year veteran Dr. Frank Field. From 1990 to ’95, Roker filled in for Willard Scott on Today, and come early 1996, upon Scott’s announced retirement, Roker received the regular weekday weatherman slot.”

Additionally, “He graduated from the State University of New York at Oswego in 1976 and still returns to his alma mater often, even wearing Oswego green-and-gold whenever he can. He helps teach a broadcasting class on campus, is a member of the Oswego College Foundation Board of Directors, has a sandwich named after him at the Oswego Sub Shop, and the student-run television station (WTOP) studio broadcasts out of the Al Roker Television Studio, named in his honor after a generous donation,” Syracuse reported.

This 45-year anniversary celebration comes just over a year after Roker was in the hospital after suffering from blood clots and internal bleeding.

Movieguide® recently reported on Roker’s recovery:

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE on “Your Mama’s Kitchen,” Roker felt he ‘ruined’ Thanksgiving last year due to his hospitalization.

“It’s no secret that I had a severe medical issue, and to be completely honest, I almost died. I didn’t know it at the time,” he said…

“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 continued…

The TV personality credited his wife, Deborah, for helping his recovery.

“Thank God for Deborah,” he said of his wife. “She basically shielded me from all of this. I’m a living example of ignorance is bliss. I was able to put all my energy into recuperating because I didn’t know how bad this was…I thought I was doing good!”

“It’s not lost on us that this is a major, major thing for Al to be here,” Deborah added. “He is a living breathing miracle. And I’m not overstating it, I think.”