[2] When Sunrise debuted in 1983, the program ran in most markets at 6:30 a.m., because few television stations at the time carried early morning local newscasts.

In the fifth segment, the anchor gave a recap of the top news headlines and interviewed a business analyst; Alan Abelson of Barron's magazine was a frequent guest.

Connie Chung left Sunrise to co-host the NBC News prime time magazine 1986 with Roger Mudd.

Bob Jamieson served as interim anchor until January 1987, when he left to host Before Hours, a 15-minute early morning business program produced by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal.

Sunrise was replaced by a new early morning news program produced by CNBC called Early Today (ironically sharing the same name as the program Sunrise replaced 16 years earlier) – which was initially broadcast a half-hour earlier than Sunrise at the time of its cancellation, at 4:30 a.m. Eastern Time – and focused mainly on business reports than general news headlines[4][5][6] (production of Early Today was taken over by MSNBC in 2004, which also resulted in a switch to a general news format).

Sunrise aired its final broadcast on September 6, 1999, which was anchored by former MSNBC and Weekend Today correspondent Gulstan Dart (now with Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA-TV).