The CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley
The CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley
On April 19, 1962, Walter Cronkite took over as CBS news anchor. Like the Douglas Edwards program that had preceded his, the show was fifteen minutes long and the title was ‘Walter Cronkite With The News’.
On September 2, 1963, CBS was the first to go to a half hour format and that day the show changed it’s name to ‘The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite’. Since 2011, Scott Pelley has been the anchor and the show is done from Studio 47 at the CBS Broadcast Center.
I was on that set last week while some camera tests were being done and as you can see, they are using robotic cameras on the show. All three of the network news shows come from large studios with spacious sets, but the Pelley set is the largest. In the photo on the right, you can see that this is the only network news set with a contingent of news staffers and producers adjacent to the anchor desk.
In my market, Atlanta, NBC and CBS news both air at 6:30 and ABC news airs at 7. I split my time between Brian Williams and Scott Pelley, but I tend to like the CBS news a little more because to me, they seem to have more hard news where NBC seems to have a softer news feel. ABC seems to be softer than NBC.
Frankly, I long for the Cronkite days. Not because Walter was a great reporter, which he was, but because as Managing Editor of the show, he chose the stories they covered. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, all the networks had harder news and in depth coverage. Usually the last story of the night, across the dial, was a human interest story a minute or two long. It seems that now, the soft news has crept back to the halfway point of the shows which leaves only 21 or 22 minutes of actual air time without the commercials.
I wish network news would go to an hour and bring back hard news. We’ve got plenty of ‘ET’ type shows to handle the Kardashians and the fluff.
Too much of a liberal slant on their news to watch.
The advent of more pictures and video began the movement to softer news, IMO.
Before the actual news became infotainment.
I agree that CBS is the most journalistic of the networks. But, my news go tos have become the PBS News Hour and Aljazeera America. Both are about serious news and both get more in depth without turning the news into a circus like CNN.
I learned on PBS’ “Pioneers of Television” that one of Walter’s co anchors on the early CBS evening news…was Dick Van Dyke. This AP story has it around the other way, but it’s mentioned. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dick-van-dyke-honored-lifetime-achievement
You’re right about today’s newscasts. It was around the mid 1980s that they started to really change. They need to keep the fluff off their shows. I remember reading at the time they were preparing more in the can stories because of their budgets. If you want a more serious news program go to CBS. After 40 years of being an NBC fan I watch CBS now
Damn Consultants!
Peter Jennings was Managing Editor at World News Tonight. He occasionally would discard the script and ad lib. That’s trust.
Blame CNN for the “touchy feely” type of news. Prior to CNN, the 3 networks were the only place for national news on TV. Hence they had to make the 30 minute newscasts count. Now it’s pretty much an afterthought considering we have multiple 24/7 cable news networks.