Which NBC special has broadcast New Year's Eve coverage from Times Square since 2004?
Answer
New Year's Eve with Carson Daly
The NBC special that became its New Year’s Eve coverage tradition is “New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly.”
NBC introduced the program for the 2004–05 New Year, after Carson Daly moved from MTV to the network. The inaugural edition was an hour-long primetime broadcast hosted from Rockefeller Center, with performances by Avril Lavigne, Duran Duran, and Maroon 5. The special subsequently shifted its principal live coverage to Times Square for the 2005–06 broadcast.
That timeline explains a small wording trap: the show premiered in 2004, but its regular Times Square setting began with the following edition. Daly’s program served as NBC’s answer to ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” combining a live countdown, musical performances, and celebrity appearances.
The title is also easy to confuse with NBC’s later New Year specials hosted by figures such as Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee Gifford, Seth Meyers, or Steve Harvey. Those were different iterations of NBC’s broader New Year’s Eve programming lineage.