"They want to give me a program, so I can continue to host and be heard every day instead of occasionally, as I would have been at NPR," Edwards told "The Washington Post". He said the format would be "loose": "It'll be long interviews, short interviews, and then maybe departments... You've got to have the news ... it's not going to be all features, yet it's not going to be the "Financial Times", either." "The Bob Edwards Show"'s first broadcast was on October 4, 2004. "Washington Post" columnist David Broder and former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite were Edwards' first guests.