Kristen Welker Celebrates 1 Year at Meet the Press With Ratings Gains

One year ago, Kristen Welker met NBC News viewers as the new face of Meet the Press. This month, the Sunday morning staple enters its 77th season with 12 months of ratings growth in its back pocket. And NBC News execs are more than happy to give Welker her flowers for keeping television’s longest-running show—scripted or unscripted—chugging along nearly 80 years after its debut.

“Like her predecessors, Kristen’s put her own signature mark on the show,” Carrie Budoff Brown, the network’s senior vice president of politics tells TVNewser, calling out Welker’s commitment to spotlighting “new voices,” as well as a diverse slate of voices both inside and outside of NBC News.

“She pulls back the curtain on what the people in power really think and seek to accomplish, and that really is the greatest service a journalist can offer,” Brown emphasizes.

One of Welker’s most visible contributions to Meet the Press is her Meet the Moment segment, where she steps outside of the political realm to interview notable public figures like civil rights leader Ruby Bridges, actor Michael Imperioli and Olympian champion-turned-mental health ambassador (plus ADWEEK Brand genius honoree) Michael Phelps.

Those conversations can be watched in full on MTP’s digital home on NBCNews.com, as part of the show’s renewed emphasis on seeding its content across multiple platforms.

Watch a Meet the Moment segment below:

That focus on a long tail translates into the kinds of guests that Welker and her producing team seek to book. “We always say Meet the Press books its shows for the news of the week, but also for the history books,” notes executive producer David Gelles, adding that interviews are specifically approached with their “long-term impact” in mind.

“Kristen’s conversations with newsmakers stay relevant, or become relevant, weeks or months after any given Sunday, and I think viewers are showing us they want that kind of added depth on their Sunday mornings,” Gelles adds.

On the digital front, NBC notes that the show saw 2.1 million multiplatform viewers last week, with 140,000 viewers specifically on YouTube. Welker also anchors a weekday afternoon edition of MTP that streams on NBC News Now.

As for the linear standings, Meet the Press regularly takes the bronze medal in total viewers on Sundays, behind ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos and CBS News’ Face the Nation. Ratings data for the just-concluded 2023-2024 TV season saw MTP averaging 2.436 million total viewers compared to the 2.472 million that watched This Week and the 2.764 million that tuned in for the first half-hour of Face the Nation. (The average for FTN’s full hour was 2.472 million.)

But NBC has been making inroads with the advertiser-rich Adults 25-54 demo in recent months. MTP pulled ahead of CBS and ABC on the weekend of Welker’s one year anniversary, with 460,000 A25-54 viewers versus 453,000 for This Week and 377,000 for FTN’s full hour. The show averaged 430,000 demo viewers for the full season, putting it in second place behind CBS and ahead of ABC for the first time in three seasons.

Certainly, an eventful 2024 news cycle has benefitted all three Sunday morning shows, with the presidential race driving a lot of the conversation. The election certainly turbocharged a typically sleepy summer courtesy of two political conventions, an assassination attempt and a high-profile candidate switch.

The challenge for MTP—and legacy news outlets in general—will be carrying that momentum into 2025 when the 47th commander in chief enters the Oval Office.

“We don’t have a crystal ball,” agrees Brown about what might lie ahead during Welker’s second year on the job. “But we know the Sunday format shines because it can bring together voices across the political spectrum on really complex issues and blend those perspectives with unique analysis and reporting. We know there will always be a role for that no matter how what the election brings.”