Up (TV series)

Up
Genre Political news/opinion program
Presented by Chris Hayes (2011–2013)
Steve Kornacki (2013–2015)
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
Production
Executive producer(s) Eelin Reily
Location(s) New York City
Camera setup Multi-camera
Running time 120 minutes
Release
Original network MSNBC
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Original release September 17, 2011 (2011-09-17) – 2016 (2016)
Chronology
Preceded by Weekends with Alex Witt (Saturdays)
Your Business (Sundays)
Followed by Melissa Harris Perry
External links
Website

Up is a news and opinion television program that airs weekends on MSNBC at 8:00 a.m. ET. It will end later in 2015 when Alex Wagner debuts a new weekend morning program. The show debuted September 17, 2011 as Up with Chris Hayes, and was hosted by Hayes until March 2013 when he left for All In with Chris Hayes, a new MSNBC weekday primetime program. Kornacki's first episode aired April 13, 2013. He left in October 2015 for MSNBC dayside.

Background

Prior to his position at MSNBC, Hayes was Washington D.C. Editor of The Nation. On August 1, 2011, MSNBC accounced that Hayes would host a two-hour morning show on Saturdays and Sundays on the network.[1] The first airing of "Up with Chris Hayes" was September 17, 2011[2] and featured a live interview with former Speaker and current House minority leader Nancy Pelosi.[3] The premiere of the Sunday program featured an appearance by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. In addition to hosting "Up," Hayes would also continue to serve as a contributor to other MSNBC programs as well as continuing his work at The Nation as Editor-at-Large based in NYC.

Up was, at the time of its premiere, the most recent of MSNBC's attempts to place political opinion or talk shows on weekends; two other series, Jesse Ventura's America (aired in 2003) and Weekends with Maury and Connie (aired in 2006), experienced short, months-long runs on weekend slots. According to Cenk Uygur, a former host on MSNBC, he was offered a weekend slot in return for letting go of his early-2011 slot on weekday evening airings of MSNBC Live, but turned it down and left the channel due to managerial disputes (commentator Al Sharpton was eventually appointed to Uygur's former slot, renamed PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton in August 2011; Uygur, instead, became a contributor and later host of The Young Turks on Current TV).

It was announced that January 5, 2012 that fellow The Nation and MSNBC contributor Melissa Harris-Perry will host her own weekend show, beginning February 4, 2012 at 10:00 am, following Up and leading to Weekends with Alex Witt.[4]

Hayes gave up weekends and hosts the 8 PM ET hour on MSNBC weekdays, his first nightly show was April 1.[5] On March 19, Steve Kornacki was named as the new host.[6] His first episode aired April 13, 2013.[7] Kornacki indicated that the show would maintain continuity, saying "a lot of progressive ideas were expressed through Up [with Chris Hayes], but I think the common thread through all the ideas, whether they’re progressive or whether they’re coming from the right, is that... they’re ideas that are worthy of discussion and worthy of exploration."[8]

In April 2013, Anne Thompson left her role as the Democratic National Committee's director of video production to become a segment producer for the program.[9]

Format

From the beginning, Up has had a more panel-driven, opinion format than most traditional morning news programs and is more comparable to MSNBC weekday prime-time programming. To prepare new guests for the show Hayes advises them, "“The first and foremost important rule of the show: we’re not on television — no talking points, no sound bites... We have a lot of time for actual conversation. So actually listen, actually respond.”[10] The show is "slightly wonky, fairly serious, but without taking itself more seriously than the stories it covers". A typical show consists of a 4-person panel discussion of relevant topics as well as several segments detailing specific stories or interviews with newsmakers.[2] Hayes has stated that, in general, the Saturday program will analyze the stories of the previous week, while the Sunday show will serve as a look ahead at the week to come. Hayes notes that "Cable news is very white, male and straight", and aims for a younger more ideologically idiosyncratic set of guests who are reflective of the diversity of the country.[11]

The "official" Twitter hashtag of the show is #uppers which began as a joke about the early show time, then went viral. Hayes monitors the feed as the cameras roll and he often refers to viewer tweets on the air.[10]

Lighthearted segments are used to punctuate the show, and his debut show had an example displaying Hayes' style of blending the comical with the serious.

Up is broadcast from 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York.

Special Segments

References

External links

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