Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve (NYRE) is an annual New Year's Eve television special broadcast by ABC. The special broadcasts primarily from New York City's Times Square and prominently features coverage of its annual ball drop event, along with live and pre-recorded musical performances by popular musicians from Times Square and Hollywood. Since 2016–17, the special has regularly included performances and coverage of midnight festivities from other locations, including New Orleans (Central Time) and San Juan (Atlantic Time, since 2021–22).
Its creator and namesake was the entertainer Dick Clark, who conceived New Year's Rockin' Eve as a younger-skewing competitor to Guy Lombardo's popular and long-running New Year's Eve big band broadcasts on CBS. The special first aired on December 31, 1972; its first two editions were broadcast by NBC, and hosted by Three Dog Night and George Carlin, respectively, with Clark anchoring coverage from Times Square. In 1974–75, the program moved to its current home of ABC, and Clark assumed the role of host. Since 2000–01, the special has broadcast segments in prime time alongside the main late-night broadcast; initially occupying the 10:00 p.m. ET/PT hour, from 2011–12 onward the special has occupied the entirety of ABC's primetime schedule on New Year's Eve.
Following the death of Guy Lombardo and the decline of CBS's specials, New Year's Rockin' Eve grew in popularity and became ingrained in pop culture—prompting Clark himself to make appearances on other programs in parodies of his role. New Year's Rockin' Eve has consistently remained the highest-rated New Year's Eve special broadcast by the United States' major television networks; its 2012 edition peaked at 22.6 million home viewers—not including viewers watching from public locations, which were not measured by Nielsen at the time.
Dick Clark hosted New Year's Rockin' Eve annually from 1973 through 1999 and from 2001 through 2004. For 2000, in lieu of New Year's Rockin' Eve, Clark joined overall host Peter Jennings as a guest co-host in Times Square for ABC News' day-long ABC 2000 Today broadcast. In December 2004, Clark suffered a stroke, which resulted in Regis Philbin serving as guest host. Due to lingering speech impediments from the stroke, Clark ceded hosting duties to Ryan Seacrest the following year (with the special having subsequently been billed as Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest since 2008), but he continued to make limited appearances as a co-host until his death in 2012. Hosting solo since the 2012–13 edition, Seacrest has typically been joined by Jenny McCarthy as a correspondent from Times Square (McCarthy ceded correspondent duties following the 2019 edition), with Ciara serving as the presenter of the Hollywood concert segments. Through its deal with Dick Clark Productions, New Year's Rockin' Eve will remain on ABC through at least 2024.
Format
New Year's Rockin' Eve is primarily broadcast from Times Square in New York City, providing coverage of the New Year's Eve festivities held there, and culminating with the long-running ball drop approaching midnight. The lead-up to the program features performances by popular musicians; some of these performances (particularly headlining acts) originate live from a stage in Times Square, but the majority of the performances are presented via segments (billed as the "Billboard Hollywood Party") recorded in Los Angeles.
Since 2005, Ryan Seacrest has hosted the live show outside in Times Square, joined by a celebrity correspondent providing additional reports from attendees. From his return and until his death, Dick Clark hosted a limited number of segments from Times Square Studios throughout the broadcast, including the countdown. Clark carried on with his tradition of kissing his wife, Kari Wigton, at midnight.
Since the 2000–01 edition, the special has begun with a segment in prime time, which was initially branded as Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve, and is currently billed for ratings purposes as "Primetme – Part 1". Initially airing at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT, the prime time block was extended to 8:00 p.m. ("Part I", with the remaining primetime block billed as "Part II") beginning with the 2011–12 edition. From 2011–12 to 2013–14, "Part I" primarily featured retrospective countdowns drawing from the Dick Clark Productions library, including the top New Year's Rockin' Eve performances of all-time (in honor of the special's 40th anniversary), and the top women in music.