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Evening news co-anchors

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installLSC

I was recently watching footage of Frank Reynolds, who co-anchored ABC's evening news in the late 70s with Max Robinson and Peter Jennings. This got me thinking about co-anchored evening newscasts. Specifically:
Which co-anchor duos (or trios) do you remember working well? And were any total mismatches?
Considering how common co-anchoring the national news was before the 70s (and how common it is in local news), why have almost all evening national news since then been so unusual?
 
Total mismatches? Well, there was Harry Reasoner and Babwa Wawa at ABC in the late '70s. If that wasn't a mismatch, nothing was.
 
With ABC back then, you knew that Frank Reynolds was the lead anchor; he did all the major breaking news events like elections and anything that came out of Washington(president, congress etc.) where as Peter Jennings did all the overseas stuff. Did Jennings go over to DC to fill in for Frank, for did someone like Tom Jarrell or Ted Koppel fill in instead?
 
installLSC said:
Considering how common co-anchoring the national news was before the 70s (and how common it is in local news), why have almost all evening national news since then been so unusual?
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The network newscasts are structured differently than local newscasts. The network newscasts are almost 100% driven by reporter packages, and the anchor does very few voiceovers himself.

In local news, especially in markets under #50, it is pretty common for the anchor(s) to spend half of a block reading the prompter. With one or two packages and 2-3 clips built in.
 
danderson6500 said:
With ABC back then, you knew that Frank Reynolds was the lead anchor; he did all the major breaking news events like elections and anything that came out of Washington(president, congress etc.)
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In the summer of '82, Ted Koppel simply took over for Reynolds when the latter was on vacation for four weeks. There was plenty of speculation that this was a tryout, but ABC realized that moving Koppel off of Nightline would weaken that show.

Reynolds' credibility had taken a major hit when he flipped out on the air during the Reagan shooting coverage. He went off the air for good in 1983 after the April 21 broadcast to recover from viral hepatitis (courtesy of a bad transfusion), with his bone cancer only noted after his death and no doubt making any recovery difficult. The transfusion came during surgery for a broken femur suffered after he had slipped on the ice.

He died in July, but as late as early June, he was described as eventually coming back in the fall. ABC's Nightly News show was going to be changing anyway because of a new producer, but Reynolds' death obviously forced their hand. In early August, Jennings was named sole anchor and began in that position the following month.
 
According to Broadcasting Magazine, Reynolds' 1983 absences were at first covered by David Brinkley (who of course only joined ABC in 1981). On July 1, Jennings stopped anchoring from London and took over the Washington anchor chair.
Also interesting is how often election coverage was co-anchored even if there was a solo anchor during the evening news. In 1980, Chancellor was NBC's sole anchor, but he shared election night duties with Tom Brokaw. That year, Reynolds co-anchored election coverage--but not with Robinson. Koppel was his cohost that night. And of course, David Brinkley co-anchored with Jennings throughout the 80s and 90s on election night.
 
On election night, multiple anchors is almost a necessity. There's a lot of time to fill. In 2016, the networks were on the air for over 6 hours; in '12 it was more like 4 1/2.

NBC has used multiples pretty much every year even though they have not used a multiple anchor format on Nightly News since the 70s (84: Brokaw, Mudd, Chancellor; 88: Brokaw, Chancellor, Chung, Utley; 92: Brokaw, Gumbel, Couric, Chancellor; 96: Brokaw, Russert; 2000 & '04: Brokaw, Russert; 04: Brokaw, Russert; 08: Williams, Mitchell, Brokaw; 12: Williams, Todd; 16: Holt, Todd, Brokaw)
 
Let's go back a ways here. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were NBC co-anchors in the late 50's till 1970, but they rarely shared the same desk. Chet was in NY, and David was in WA DC. Yet, even with this separation, they were the leaders at first, until Uncle Walter came on and became #1. I can't think of another same desk anchor team until the ill-fated Reasoner/Walters pairing in 1976. In that respect, they were pioneers. But it failed. Later, ABC, as mentioned above, went to to a tri-anchor format with Frank Reynolds, Peter Jennings, and Max Robinson, though all were in separate locations. This would have been in the early 80's. Since that experiment, (which actually did well for awhile ratings-wise), I can only think of one same desk teams, that being Rather/Chung, which obviously didn't last very long in the 90's.

The demise of evening network news has been predicted for atleast three decades now. Yet, it still remains on the air.
 
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seatownmedia said:
The demise of evening network news has been predicted for atleast three decades now. Yet, it still remains on the air.
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I'm thinking it's kind of the reverse of the 70s and early 80s. If you recall, the networks floated the idea of a one-hour evening network newscast, but the affiliates said essentially, "No way," - they didn't want to give up that half hour of local airtime. So perhaps the network doesn't want to give it back to the local stations now.

Personally, I have a job and a life, and I'm rarely home at 5:30 to watch the news. That's been true for 4 decades. I could DVR it, but there are so many other things to DVR, I wouldn't have the time to watch network news. And of course, there is 24 hour news on cable now, not to mention the internet - any time I need a news fix.
 
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LKellerIII said:
I'm thinking it's kind of the reverse of the 70s and early 80s. If you recall, the networks floated the idea of a one-hour evening network newscast, but the affiliates said essentially, "No way," - they didn't want to give up that half hour of local airtime. So perhaps the network doesn't want to give it back to the local stations now.

Personally, I have a job and a life, and I'm rarely home at 5:30 to watch the news. That's been true for 4 decades. I could DVR it, but there are so many other things to DVR, I wouldn't have the time to watch network news. And of course, there is 24 hour news on cable now, not to mention the internet - any time I need a news fix.
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I never thought I would refer to this in my lifetime, but here is an excerpt from my term paper in high school, dated 1977:

"Some expect the nightly news will expand from one half hour to one full hour. The move, according to the network executives, would allow for more in-depth reporting of stories like one would on "60 Minutes" or "Weekend". More time would be spent on each item , and thus would be less confusing and more valuable to the viewer. Immediately the plan of expansion met fierce opposition. Critics said the show would not hold an audience night after night, five days a week. Chicago anchorman, Walter Jacobson of WBBM-TV, said "the audience doesn't want to sit for ten minutes to watch a well-done, well-written story. They want ten seconds of the school crisis and ten seconds of Liz and Dick." This sounds like a put down on American society, but the fact is the American people are indeed a restless breed. There are just too many things to do besides keeping up with the news, especially a full hour from NBC, CBS, or ABC each evening. Furthermore, the affiliate stations across the country put down the idea of of expanding network news because they say it could cut down their local news time and with would come reduced local advertising revenue".

Yep, I wrote that before my 18th birthday, and even provided the proper footnote references! I did get an "A" for the term paper, but I'm not bragging...lol.
 
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LKellerIII said:
I'm thinking it's kind of the reverse of the 70s and early 80s. If you recall, the networks floated the idea of a one-hour evening network newscast, but the affiliates said essentially, "No way," - they didn't want to give up that half hour of local airtime. So perhaps the network doesn't want to give it back to the local stations now.

duplicate
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seatownmedia said:
I never thought I would refer to this in my lifetime, but here is an excerpt from my term paper in high school, dated 1977:

"Some expect the nightly news will expand from one half hour to one full hour. The move, according to the network executives, would allow for more in-depth reporting of stories like one would on "60 Minutes" or "Weekend". More time would be spent on each item , and thus would be less confusing and more valuable to the viewer. Immediately the plan of expansion met fierce opposition. Critics said the show would not hold an audience night after night, five days a week. Chicago anchorman, Walter Jacobson of WBBM-TV, said "the audience doesn't want to sit for ten minutes to watch a well-done, well-written story. They want ten seconds of the school crisis and ten seconds of Liz and Dick." This sounds like a put down on American society, but the fact is the American people are indeed a restless breed. There are just too many things to do besides keeping up with the news, especially a full hour from NBC, CBS, or ABC each evening. Furthermore, the affiliate stations across the country put down the idea of of expanding network news because they say it could cut down their local news time and with would come reduced local advertising revenue".

Yep, I wrote that before my 18th birthday, and even provided the proper footnote references! I did get an "A" for the term paper, but I'm not bragging...lol.
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Much like "Network," which came out the year before, turned out to be a scarily-accurate depiction of TV in the future.
 
Roger Mudd co-anchored with Tom Brokaw for a year or so after John Chancellor reduced his role in the newscasts. After that, Brokaw had the job all to himself.
 
Well there was PBS News hour with Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil they were together for two decades until Macneil left in 1995 and more recently when Gwen Ifill co-hosted the PBS Newshour from 2013-2016 with Judy Woodruff until Ifill died last year.

Hari Sreenivasan (Weekend Host) on the PBS Newshour will sometimes be mentioned as the Weekday Co-Host and or Fill-in with Judy Woodruff on the PBS Newshour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_MacNeil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS_NewsHour

PBS is the only known recent case where their national newscast has 2 hosts on their evening newscast.

But Woodruff for now is going solo according to this case.
 
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RadioPatrol said:
Well there was PBS News hour with Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil they were together for two decades until Macneil left in 1995 and more recently when Gwen Ifill co-hosted the PBS Newshour from 2013-2016 with Judy Woodruff until Ifill died last year.

Hari Sreenivasan (Weekend Host) on the PBS Newshour will sometimes be mentioned as the Weekday Co-Host and or Fill-in with Judy Woodruff on the PBS Newshour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_MacNeil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS_NewsHour

PBS is the only known recent case where their national newscast has 2 hosts on their evening newscast.

But Woodruff for now is going solo according to this case.
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We had the unfortunately short-lived Elizabeth Vargas-Bob Woodruff pairing on ABC World News, with Gibson/Sawyer filling in as co-anchors after Bob Woodruff's horrific injury.
 
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