May 3, 1948…CBS Debuts TV’s First, Live, Nightly Network News

On this day in 1948, “CBS TV News” became network television’s first daily newscast, with a live newsman…Douglas Edwards.

NBC actually had the first daily network news broadcast, which began February 16, 1948. That was the “The NBC Television Newsreel” (later named “Esso Newsreel” and “Camel Newsreel”), which was a 10 minute weekday newsreel, and was narrated off camera by John Cameron Swayze. On February 16, 1949, Swayze moved in front of the camera, and that began “The News Caravan” as a live news show. By the summer of ’49, Camel had become the sponsor and the name changed to “Camel News Caravan”.

To go a bit further in just what the first network new broadcast was, we go again to NBC. Their Sunday afternoon, “The War As It Happens” began as a local weekly program, but NBC records indicate that in April of 1944, it was fed to Schenectady and Philadelphia on the fledgling NBC Television Network, and became the first news cast regularly seen in multiple cities. In August 1945, the war was over and the Sunday “The War As It Happens” newscast was renamed “The NBC Television Newsreel”.

Edwards joined CBS Radio in 1942, eventually becoming anchor for the network’s regular evening newscast “The World Today” as well as “World News Today” on Sunday afternoons. He came to CBS after stints as a radio newscaster and announcer at WSB in Atlanta, Georgia and WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.

Although Lowell Thomas, on NBC, and Richard Hubble on CBS had done live TV news shows locally in New York in the late ’30s and early ’40s, Edwards was the first network anchor.

After the war, CBS began telecasting news shows locally on Saturday nights, expanding to two nights a week in 1947. These reports were delivered by CBS radio news men, who were not really interested in this “television stuff” and loathed having to do it. Edwards had a couple of turns at it, and kind of enjoyed it and let his interest be known.

On May 3, 1948, Douglas Edwards began anchoring the “CBS Television News”, a regular 15-minute nightly newscast, airing every weeknight at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and this was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program to use an anchor.

On CBS, the week’s news stories were recapped on a Sunday night TV program titled “Newsweek in Review”. The name was later changed to “The Week in Review”, and the show was moved to Saturdays. In 1950, the name of the nightly newscast was changed to “Douglas Edwards With the News”, and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting “Good evening everyone, coast to coast.”

Once the coast-to-coast connection was available, it is not clear whether both Douglas, and Swayze did a live second broadcast for the west coast, or whether it was kinescoped. There are stories that report the show was done live again, with added west coast content, and reports that say it was kine delayed, but one thing is clear…November 30, 1956, Edwards’ program became the first to use the new technology of videotape to time delay the broadcast.

Early on, NBC’s news took the lead, but by the mid 50s, CBS and Edwards were in the lead. In September 1955, “Douglas Edwards With The News” was moved from 7:30 to 6:45 p.m. ET.

On October 29, 1956, Swayze was replaced by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report”. The switch helped CBS ratings as it took a while for Chet and David to gain traction. By the early ’60s, NBC’s news ratings were a good bit higher, and a decision was made to make a switch at CBS.

Walter Cronkite became anchor on April 16, 1962. On September 2, 1963, “The CBS Evening News” became network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, lengthened from its original 15 minutes, and telecast at 6:30 p.m. ET. NBC quickly followed suit and “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” expanded to 30 minutes exactly a week later on September 9, 1963. ABC followed 4 years later.

“The CBS Evening News” was broadcast in color for one evening on August 19, 1965, and made the switch permanently on January 31, 1966.

Just this week, a big change to the weekend edition of “CBS Evening News”, was announced, and that story is in today’s second post, so look for it, or better yet, visit this page by clicking on the blue EOAG address at the top of this post. Enjoy and share. -Bobby Ellerbee

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