On May 3, 1971, at 5 p.m., All Things Considered debuted on 90 public radio stations.
In the years since, almost everything about the program has changed, from the hosts, producers, editors and reporters to the length of the program, the equipment used and even the audience.
However there is one thing that remains the same: each show consists of the biggest stories of the day, thoughtful commentaries, insightful features on the quirky and the mainstream in arts and life, music and entertainment, all brought alive through sound.
All Things Considered is the most listened-to, afternoon drive-time, news radio program in the country. Every weekday the two-hour show is hosted by Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, Mary Louise Kelly and Ailsa Chang. In 1977, ATC expanded to seven days a week with a one-hour show on Saturdays and Sundays. Michel Martin hosts on the weekends.
Audie Cornish | 
Ari Shapiro | 
Mary Louise Kelly |
| 
Ailsa Chang |
Photos by Stephen Voss/NPR
During each broadcast, stories and reports come to listeners from NPR reporters and correspondents based throughout the United States and the world. The hosts interview newsmakers and contribute their own reporting. Rounding out the mix are the disparate voices of a variety of commentators, including Sports Commentator Stefen Fatsis, and Political Columnists David Brooks and E.J. Dionne.
All Things Considered has earned many of journalism's highest honors, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and the Overseas Press Club Award.
-
Keeping a museum's temperature and humidity constant -- rain or shine, all year long -- takes a massive amount of energy, and it's expensive. But some museums have a solution.
-
The 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee champ shares what it takes to spell it right in 2026.
-
The phrase "bird watching" does not take in the full range of people who love searching for wild birds. We meet a few of the many visually impaired birders who use their ears.
-
The price of a gallon of gas is up well over a dollar from where it was a year ago and these swing voters are feeling it.
-
NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Heather Schneider of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden about the garden's efforts to conserve seeds of rare plants from Santa Rosa Island, where a wildfire just burned.
-
A U.S. Senate race in Texas is now set with the state's Attorney General Ken Paxton winning the GOP nomination in a primary runoff Tuesday. He'll face Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.