He once told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tim Cuprisin that broadcasting became more important to him than attending classes, and he skipped a lot of them.

[6] Snyder began his career as a radio reporter at WRIT-AM (unrelated to the present-day FM station) in Milwaukee, now WJYI-AM and at WKZO in Kalamazoo (where he was fired by John Fetzer) in the 1950s.

Snyder moved into television in the 1960s; he talked about driving cross-country in an early Corvair from Atlanta to Los Angeles around 1963.

[7] In July 1970, Snyder returned to Los Angeles and joined NBC News, who assigned him to anchor the 6:00 pm (Pacific time) weeknight newscast on KNBC.

Snyder remained in this capacity even after NBC launched the Tomorrow show with him as host in October 1973, working alongside Tom Brokaw, Jess Marlow and Paul Moyer at the KNBC anchor desk.

It was a talk show unlike the usual late-night fare, with Snyder, cigarette in hand, alternating between asking hard-hitting questions and offering personal observations that made the interview seem more like a conversation.

[9] An infamous edition of The Tomorrow Show broadcast on October 31, 1979, saw Snyder interview the rock group KISS.

Snyder and Peter Criss (drummer) were obviously enjoying it though, chiming in with several jokes, much to Frehley's delight, and Simmons' disgust.

Snyder's love of toy trains started with his first Lionel locomotive, a scale steam switcher, which he claimed never worked too well.

[10] Following a disastrous experiment with turning Tomorrow into a more typical talk show—renaming it Tomorrow Coast to Coast and adding a live audience and co-host Rona Barrett (all of which Snyder resented)—the show was canceled in fall 1981, to make way for the up-and-coming young comedian David Letterman, after Snyder turned down moving to the 1:30 to 2:30 am time slot after Letterman.

In 1982 Snyder joined WABC-TV in New York, anchoring the 5 pm Eyewitness News program with Kaity Tong.

He stayed at WABC for two years,[11] then returned to the talk format in 1985 at KABC-TV in Los Angeles with a local afternoon show.

Snyder returned to television on CNBC on January 21, 1993, adding the opportunity for viewers to call in with their own questions for his guests.

Snyder nicknamed his show the Colorcast, reviving an old promotional term NBC-TV used in the early 1960s to brand its color broadcasts.

He also continued his trademark of talking to offscreen crew and made frequent reference to the studio, reminding viewers of its location in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

It was then reformatted for his successor Craig Kilborn, as a more traditional late night show with an audience, comic monologue, comedy segments, shorter interviews, and a greater emphasis on guests from the entertainment industry.