Studio 8H

• 1. Introduction

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  Studio 8H sits on the eighth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a 6,102-square-foot room that has hosted some of the most watched live television in American history. It was built in 1933 as a space for orchestras and radio audiences, and it became so central to the NBC broadcast tradition that a single renovation costing $250,000 in 1975 set the stage for Saturday Night Live's first broadcast. What is it about this one room that kept pulling the biggest names in television back to its floor? And how did a radio hall built for Arturo Toscanini become the home of Eddie Murphy doing a Mr. Rogers parody?

• 2. Built for Sound

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  When Rockefeller Center opened in 1933, Studio 8H was the largest radio studio in the world. Its footprint measured 132 by 78 feet, rising three stories high, a scale that allowed a full orchestra to perform inside without the room swallowing the sound. That size was deliberate. NBC designed it for orchestral broadcasts and radio variety programs that required large studio audiences.

  Arturo Toscanini, one of the most celebrated conductors of the twentieth century, made the studio the home of his NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1937. His presence transformed 8H into a venue with genuine artistic prestige. The studio's reputation grew further with a single performance: the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings took place inside those walls, a piece that would go on to become one of the most recognized works in American classical music.

  In 1950, NBC converted the studio for television use. Its first major television tenant was Kraft Television Theatre, a live drama broadcast that reflected how American audiences were shifting from radio sets to television screens.

• 3. Saturday Night Live's Home

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  Before the first Saturday Night Live broadcast in 1975, NBC spent $250,000 renovating Studio 8H to prepare it for the show. That investment signaled how seriously the network took the new late-night experiment. SNL has been broadcast live from the studio every season since its debut, making 8H the longest continuous home of any live sketch comedy program in American television.

  The studio's connection to SNL also produced unexpected echoes. Fred Rogers had earlier worked in 8H writing music for Your Hit Parade. Years later, Eddie Murphy stood on the same floor performing his SNL character Mr. Robinson, a parody of the children's television persona Rogers had made famous. The same physical space held both the origin and the send-up.

  Two episodes of the NBC sitcom 30 Rock broke from that show's usual filmed format to broadcast live from 8H, titled "Live Show" and "Live from Studio 6H." Lorne Michaels, SNL's executive producer, also produced NBC's 75th anniversary celebration in May 2002, which was broadcast live from the studio.

• 4. A Roster of One-Night Stands

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  The first season finale of The Apprentice used Studio 8H for a single night, as did the fifth anniversary special of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The fifth anniversary special of Late Night with David Letterman was broadcast from there as well, along with Later with Bob Costas, Love, Sidney, and House Party with Steve Doocy. Each of those productions treated 8H as a destination, a place with enough history and production infrastructure to justify moving a show out of its usual space.

  In January 1975, the daytime drama The Doctors taped a special one-hour episode in Studio 8H; its regular taping location was Studio 3B. The Today show made a longer stay. In mid-1990, Today moved its set into 8H while a new set was being built back at Studio 3B. That new Studio 3B set debuted on the 10th of September 1990, and Today moved back. The studio also hosted the live portions of the season finale of The Celebrity Apprentice on the 27th of March 2008.

  Last Call with Carson Daly occupied Studio 8H until 2005, when the show relocated to Studio 9 at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. MSNBC's Morning Joe celebrated its tenth anniversary with a live audience in the studio on the 19th of September 2017, and the program returned for post-election coverage on the 7th of November 2018, as well as on the 10th of November 2016 and the 7th of November 2012.