Amna Nawaz
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WATCH: Robert MacNeil announces 1983 expansion of MacNeil/Lehrer Report to full-hour show
Posted
October 20, 2025
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October 20, 2025
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0:22Now PlayingOn Friday, Sept. 2, 1983, anchor Robert MacNeil announced on air that the 30-minute MacNeil/Lehrer Report would become a full-hour show.
“When we return on Monday night it will be in our new format, expanded from the present half-hour to a comprehensive one-hour program of news and analysis,” MacNeil said at the end of the broadcast. That night’s show had focused deeply on one topic, the downing of a Korean passenger plane by the Soviet Union.
The following Monday, Sept. 5, the newly extended program resumed its coverage of the crash, as well as offering reporting on labor unions rallying against President Ronald Reagan and a story about the National Theater for the Deaf.
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