Cavett landed his first job as a TV host in March 1968 with the ABC daytime show "This Morning". A year later, he segued to late night with an eponymous interview series that went head to head with Johnny Carson and "The Tonight Show". Although not a ratings bonanza, "The Dick Cavett Show" was revered by critics and he succeeded in gaining additional press with rare interviews with celebrities like Katharine Hepburn and for an incident in which a 70-year-old health enthusiast died while on-the-air. Since the demise of that first late-night show, Cavett has made repeated attempts to recapture the national berth such a gig allows. He hosted interview series for CBS in 1975 and for PBS from 1977-1982, all which kept him in the public eye, but with diminishing audience interest. He found some measure of stability with "Cavett" (1989-1996) on the fledgling cable network CNBC wherein the Cavett style was still evident--flip a riposte and then seem to enjoy it more than the audience.

As a seeming safeguard, Cavett embarked on a secondary career as host and narrator of numerous TV reality shows, lending prestige, and some might say class, with his presence. Examples include "Time Was" (HBO, 1979), which looked at the development of aspects of society (such as travel, food and lodging), "Funny Girl to Funny Lady" (ABC, 1975), a retrospective on the career of Barbra Streisand lady" (ABC, 1975). His love of the Marx Brothers led to hosting "The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell" (PBS, 1982) and "Here He Is...The One, the Only...Groucho" (HBO, 1991). In 1992, Cavett interviewed writer, raconteur and political sniper Gore Vidal for a PBS special and more recently narrated the opening sequence of the 1997 Showtime original movie "Elvis and Nixon".