Meredith Vieira will make Olympics history when she steps in to take over primetime and late night Olympics hosting duties for Bob Costas. Matt Lauer had been filling in for Bob Costas, however, he was being spread a bit too thin and NBC has turned to Vieira to take on the Olympics hosting duties marking the first time a female will serve as the solo host of the U.S. Olympics broadcast in primetime.
Meredith Vieira’s Biography [Courtesy of NBC]
Vieira joined TODAY in September 2006 as co-anchor and was immediately accepted into the ranks of America’s first television family. During her five years at TODAY, Vieira covered some of the biggest news stories of our time, including the 2008 presidential election, the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, and the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. She sat down with some of the most notable newsmakers of our time, including President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and First Lady Laura Bush. She also contributed to Dateline NBC as well as many NBC News specials.
While at TODAY, Vieira conducted numerous exclusive news-making interviews. She spoke with former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in her first-ever live television interview after her identity was revealed and she sat down with author J.K. Rowling in her only television interview about her final Harry Potter volume. Vieira’s memorable exclusive celebrity interviews include Janet Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Susan Boyle, Kate Gosselin, and Madonna, to name a few.
At the end of 2008, Vieira founded her own TV/film/theatre production company, Meredith Vieira Productions. She served as the executive producer for a number of projects including the feature film Return, which premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and the critically-acclaimed feature documentary The Woman Who Wasn’t There, which broke network ratings records on Investigation Discovery. Vieira also served as a producer of the national tour of the hit Off-Broadway play, Life In A Marital Institution (20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour).
In addition to her reporting and producing roles, Vieira hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, from 2002 until 2013. Prior to joining NBC News, she had been moderator of ABC’s The View since the show’s inception in 1997. Vieira started at ABC in 1993 when she joined their news division as chief correspondent of Turning Point, which debuted in March 1994. Vieira has been honored with nine Emmys, including two Daytime Emmys for best morning newscast for her work on TODAY.
Prior to her work at ABC, Vieira spent more than a decade at CBS News, where she garnered five Emmy Awards for her work as a correspondent on the news magazines 60 Minutes and West 57th. From 1989 to 1991, she was a co-editor of 60 Minutes.
Vieira also frequently anchored the CBS Morning News and was contributing national correspondent on the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather. After two successful seasons, and pregnant with her second child, Vieira left 60 Minutes.
Vieira joined CBS News as a reporter in its Chicago bureau in January 1982. Prior to that, she was a reporter for local WCBS-TV in New York for three years. She began her career as a news announcer for WORC-Radio in Worcester, Mass., in 1975.
A native of Providence, R.I., Vieira received a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in Medford, Mass. She has three children, Ben, Gabe, and Lily with her husband, Richard Cohen.
