The program was so named because it was broadcast in the early morning, in New York at 6:30 a.m. Sunrise Semester was developed by Warren A. Kraetzer, director of the Office of Radio/Television at New York University, and Sam Cook Digges, general manager of WCBS-TV,[2] and started on WCBS before becoming a syndicated program.
Thomas Brophy, assistant director under Kraetzer, was the administrator of the program until his retirement in 1973, when he was succeeded by Pat Myers.
[3] New York University planned the courses and provided faculty; beginning in 1963, CBS taped and distributed it to network affiliates.
[4][5] The first course was Comparative Literature 10: From Stendhal to Hemingway, taught by Floyd Zulli, Jr., an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages.
[17] There were plans in the early 1980s to improve the production values of the program, but CBS canceled it in 1982 to make way for early-morning news.
[22] Jack Gould in The New York Times called it "a refreshing and civilized hit" and praised the instructor's "[lack of] condescension" and "carefully controlled ...theatrical[ity]".
[12] Sunrise Semester was cited in a 2021 article in the Smithsonian magazine as setting the stage for widespread distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.