All Things Considered

• 1. Introduction

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  All Things Considered debuted on the 3rd of May, 1971, fed to about 90 radio stations across the United States with a single host, Robert Conley, at the microphone. The very first story was about a march on Washington, D.C., and the growing anti-Vietnam War protests unfolding in the streets. During that opening week, stations were not even permitted to air the feed live. They could only record it for later broadcast. From that constrained beginning, the program grew into NPR's flagship news show. What made it survive when so many radio programs have vanished? How did a two-hour afternoon newscast become one of the most listened-to radio programs in the country? And why does its format break the rules that most news programs follow without question?

• 2. An Afternoon Gamble

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  NPR placed its first daily newscast in the afternoon commute slot for a practical reason that had nothing to do with audience size. Many of its affiliates in 1971 did not sign on for the day until mid-morning or later, so a morning slot was simply not available. The afternoon was the open window. That scheduling decision shaped the program's identity for years. It was not until 1979, once most affiliates had expanded their broadcast days to begin at 6 a.m. or earlier, that NPR launched Morning Edition as a morning counterpart. Weekend All Things Considered followed its own timeline, premiering in 1974 as a one-hour version broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

• 3. Inside the Clock

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  The program begins each hour with a theme song by Don Voegeli playing under a one-minute billboard of upcoming stories. A standard five-minute NPR newscast follows, delivered from one minute to six minutes past the hour. The first segment, called the A segment, kicks off at six minutes and thirty seconds past the hour and runs eleven minutes and twenty-nine seconds, closing at the eighteen-minute mark with a two-minute station break. Segment B picks up at twenty minutes and thirty-five seconds past the hour and runs eight minutes and twenty-four seconds, breaking at the half-hour. A host return begins the second half of the hour, followed by a three-and-a-half-minute newscast ending at thirty-four minutes past the hour. Segment C starts at thirty-five minutes and thirty-five seconds past the hour, also running eight minutes and twenty-four seconds; it is where long feature stories tend to land. Segment D, a four-minute designated cutaway beginning at forty-four minutes past, lets stations substitute local commentary. Segment E closes the hour at fifty minutes past and runs eight minutes and nine seconds. Occasionally the show breaks this format entirely, placing a twelve-minute story across Segments C and D without any local cutaway.

• 4. Scale and Reach

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  By 2005, All Things Considered aired on over 560 radio stations and reached approximately 12 million listeners each weekday, placing it third among all radio programs in the United States, behind The Rush Limbaugh Show and Morning Edition. In September 2010, the program's average quarter-hour audience stood at 1.8 million. The program is broadcast live on NPR-affiliated stations in the United States and distributed worldwide through several outlets. ABC NewsRadio in Australia airs a continuous hour of selected segments each weekday between noon and 1 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time, editing together Segments A through D while omitting local NPR news inserts. NPR Berlin formerly carried the program in Germany, airing it live from the United States in the local German timeslot. To prevent the program from competing with local stations, ATC was excluded from NPR's deal with Sirius Satellite Radio.

• 5. Voices Behind the Desk

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  Robert Conley hosted the inaugural broadcast in 1971. Susan Stamberg joined in 1972 and held the anchor role through 1986, a tenure of fourteen years. Robert Siegel anchored from 1987 through 2018, spanning more than three decades. Noah Adams appeared across two separate stints, from 1982 to 1987 and again from 1989 to 2002. Ari Shapiro anchored from 2015 through 2025. The current weekday roster includes Ailsa Chang, Mary Louise Kelly, Juana Summers, and Scott Detrow. The weekend edition has cycled through an equally long list; Michel Martin served as Weekend ATC host from 2015 to 2023, and her voice later extended to the show's podcast companion when that expanded to Saturdays in January 2022. A rotating cast of commentators has also shaped the program's character over the decades, including Daniel Schorr, who contributed from 1985 through 2010.

• 6. Awards and Legacy

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  In 1993, All Things Considered became the first public radio program inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. The awards it has received include the Ohio State Award, the Peabody Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, the DuPont Award, the American Women in Radio and Television Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. In 2017, the Library of Congress selected the original 1971 broadcast episode for preservation in the National Recording Registry, a collection reserved for recordings deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. That recording, the one with Robert Conley introducing a march on Washington while ninety stations waited for permission to air it live, now sits alongside some of the most significant audio documents in American history. On the 29th of June, 2020, NPR launched a podcast companion called Consider This, with ATC hosts providing in-depth analysis of a single story each weekday afternoon, extending the program's reach into on-demand listening more than four decades after its debut.