NBC Trivia
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77 free NBC trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
73 free NBC trivia questions with answers. NBC is the oldest of America's big networks, and almost a century of history hides behind the peacock. This quiz covers the company itself: the RCA radio days, why the Red and Blue networks were named after pushpins, how the Blue Network became ABC, the G-E-C chimes that became the first audio trademark, and the peacock's eleven feathers becoming six. Then it gets to the shows. Meet the Press, Today and The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live and Studio 8H, the Must See TV Thursdays of Cheers, Seinfeld and Friends, then The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Law & Order and This Is Us. Sports fans get the Heidi Game, the Olympics, Sunday Night Football and Roundball Rock. Questions range from easy to genuinely obscure, and every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source.
30 of 77 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01NBC was founded in 1926 as a division of which company?
Radio Corporation of America
RCA kept a 50 percent stake, and regular broadcasts began on 15 November 1926.
Q 02Which company bought a controlling stake in NBCUniversal in January 2011?
Comcast
Comcast took a 51 percent controlling stake in NBCUniversal in January 2011 and bought out the remaining share in 2013; 30 Rockefeller Plaza was renamed the Comcast Building in 2015.
Q 03NBC's peacock logo was introduced in 1956 to promote what?
Color broadcasting
Color broadcasting: the bird debuted in 1956 as an on-air emblem for NBC's color programs, at a time when the network's parent company was selling color television sets.
Q 04How many feathers did the original 1956 NBC peacock have?
Eleven
The original 1956 bird had eleven feathers; the 1986 redesign cut it to six, one for each division of the network at the time.
Q 05Which division did yellow represent in NBC's six-feather 1986 logo?
News
News was yellow in the 1986 six-feather logo; Sports was orange, Entertainment red, Stations purple, Network blue and Productions green.
Q 06NBC's 1976 trapezoid 'N' logo was nearly identical to which broadcaster's, which sued?
Nebraska ETV Network
NBC settled by handing the Nebraska public network more than $800,000 of broadcasting equipment plus $55,000 to design a new logo.
Q 07The famous three-note NBC chimes sound which notes?
G, E, C
The chimes are G, E, C — a G3 followed by E4 and C4 — an identification signal first heard on NBC radio in the late 1920s and standardised in the early 1930s.
Q 08Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll starred in which NBC radio serial from 1929?
Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy, voiced by Gosden and Correll, joined NBC's Blue network in August 1929 and became one of the biggest hits of early network radio.
Q 09A four-note variant known as 'the fourth chime' was reserved by NBC for what?
Events of extreme urgency
The fourth chime signalled events of extreme urgency, calling staff in for urgent bulletins; it was sounded after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 and again on D-Day in June 1944.
Q 10According to network lore, how did NBC's early Red and Blue radio networks get their colour names?
From coloured pushpins on affiliate maps
The Red Network carried sponsored entertainment; the Blue Network mostly aired unsponsored news and cultural shows.
Q 11NBC's Blue Network was sold off in 1943 and became which rival network?
ABC
ABC: after the FCC ordered NBC's owner to divest one of its two chains, the Blue Network was sold in 1943 and formally became the American Broadcasting Company on 15 June 1945.
Q 12Edward J. Noble, who bought NBC Blue for $8 million in 1943, had made his fortune selling which product?
Life Savers candy
Edward J. Noble made his fortune with Life Savers candy, the ring-shaped mints whose rights he bought in 1913, before paying $8 million for NBC's Blue Network in 1943.
Q 13On 30 April 1939, NBC's World's Fair camera made who the first US president to appear on television?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Q 21Who shared Tonight hosting duties with its first host during the 1956–57 season?
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs hosted Tonight on Mondays and Tuesdays in 1956–57 while the show's original host, newly given a Sunday primetime series, kept only Wednesday through Friday.
Q 22In 1972 The Tonight Show left New York for a studio in which California city?
Burbank
On air it was announced as coming from 'beautiful downtown Burbank', though NBC also called it Hollywood.
Q 23Who succeeded Johnny Carson as Tonight Show host in 1992, a choice blamed for losing Letterman?
Jay Leno
Jay Leno took over Tonight in May 1992; the passed-over David Letterman left for CBS and launched the Late Show opposite him in August 1993.
Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the New York World's Fair on 30 April 1939 before NBC's camera, reaching roughly 1,000 viewers within 40 miles of the Empire State Building transmitter.
Q 14Which NBC program, first aired in 1947, is the longest-running program on American television?
Meet the Press
Meet the Press premiered on NBC television on 6 November 1947, two years after starting on radio, which makes it the longest-running program in American television history.
Q 15Who co-created NBC's long-running political interview program in 1947 and moderated it first?
Martha Rountree
Martha Rountree created the program with Lawrence Spivak and moderated it from its 1947 debut into the 1950s; Kristen Welker became the second woman to moderate it in 2023.
Q 16Who is Meet the Press's longest-serving moderator, on the job from 1991 until his death in 2008?
Tim Russert
Russert had been NBC's Washington bureau chief; his whiteboard 'Florida, Florida, Florida' became an election-night icon in 2000.
Q 17Which NBC executive dreamed up Today in 1952 and also created The Tonight Show?
Sylvester 'Pat' Weaver
Weaver's other creations included the radio show Monitor; his daughter is the actress Sigourney Weaver.
Q 18What kind of creature was J. Fred Muggs, a Today show regular in the 1950s?
A chimpanzee
J. Fred Muggs was a chimpanzee who joined Today a year after its 1952 launch; his antics drew viewers but exasperated the staff, especially host Dave Garroway.
Q 19Today's street-side studio at Rockefeller Center, opened in 1994, is Studio what?
1A
Studio 1A, the glass-walled street-level studio on Rockefeller Plaza, opened in June 1994, echoing the 1950s when passers-by watched Dave Garroway through the window of the show's original storefront studio.
Q 20Who was the first host of The Tonight Show when it debuted in 1954?
Steve Allen
Steve Allen hosted the first network Tonight broadcast on 27 September 1954, after fronting a local late-night version on New York's WNBT, and stayed until January 1957.
Q 24Late Night with David Letterman debuted in 1982 in the late-night slot vacated by what?
The Tomorrow Show
The Tomorrow Show, Tom Snyder's interview program, was cancelled in January 1982, and 34-year-old Letterman inherited its post-Tonight slot on 1 February 1982.
Q 25Who hosted the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in October 1975?
George Carlin
George Carlin hosted the first episode in October 1975, delivering several stand-up monologues; Lorne Michaels created the show, which Dick Ebersol had developed for NBC.
Q 26What nickname was given to the original Saturday Night Live cast?
The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players
Writer Herb Sargent coined 'The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players' for the 1975 cast, which included John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase.
Q 27On which night did NBC run its 'Must See TV' comedy block in the 1990s?
Thursday
Thursday was Must See TV night: Friends and ER anchored the lineup from 1994, and the tag was later stretched to other nights as well.
Q 28Which Cheers spin-off later won a then-record 37 Emmys?
Frasier
Frasier took Outstanding Comedy Series five years running; The Tortellis lasted a single season.
Q 29After leaving Boston, Dr Crane hosts a call-in psychiatry show on which fictional Seattle radio station?
KACL
KACL is the fictional Seattle talk station where Dr Crane hosts his call-in show; he had left Boston, and the Cheers bar, after his marriage to Lilith ended.
Q 30The 1989 pilot for Jerry and Larry David's sitcom about a New York comedian aired under what title?
The Seinfeld Chronicles
The pilot aired as The Seinfeld Chronicles in July of that year; NBC then ordered only four more episodes, and the show took off once it was scheduled after Cheers in 1993.