11 Network Evening News Moments That Changed TV History
Though evening news broadcasts might not be the appointment TV they were in the days of Walter Cronkite, the format isn’t going anywhere soon. Nielsen data shows 18 million people tune into ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, or NBC Nightly News each evening, and ad spending on those three shows and their weekend editions rose 12 percent to hit $669 million in 2024, as the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year.
Still, the business remains in constant churn, especially now that CBS is losing one of its two Evening News anchors. In the photo gallery below, learn more about that shift and 10 other shakeups in network evening news.
1970: NBC Nightly News premieres with a grab bag of anchors
Journalists Chet Huntley and David Brinkley collaborated on NBC’s evening news show The Huntley–Brinkley Report for more than a decade, but when Huntley retired in August 1970, Brinkley continued on with the new NBC Nightly News. On that new show, Brinkley joined co-anchors Frank McGee and John Chancellor (pictured here), and viewers never knew which of those three men they’d see on a given night, according to the Associated Press. Finally, NBC decided to make Chancellor the sole anchor in August 1971 (though Brinkley joined him at the anchor desk again from 1976 to 1979).
1976: Barbara Walters makes history on ABC Evening News
Though their partnership would last less than two years, Barbara Walters became Harry Reasoner’s co-anchor on the ABC Evening News in October 1976. In so doing, Walters became not just the first woman to present the evening news on a major television network but, with her $1 million yearly salary, the world’s highest-paid newscaster. “ABC has offered me an exciting prospect, a real challenge, and I made this decision to accept,” Walters told The New York Times at the time.
1978: ABC relaunches its broadcast and introduces evening news’ first Black anchor
ABC News transformed the ABC Evening News into ABC World News Tonight in July 1978 and replaced Reasoner and Walters with three journalists: Frank Reynolds (front) in Washington, D.C., Peter Jennings (middle) in London, and Max Robinson (back) in Chicago. By scoring that gig, Robinson became the first Black anchor in evening news. Reynolds died in 1983, and Jennings took over as sole anchor that same year, by which point the program was on equal footing with CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News, according to The Columbia History of American Television.
1995: Connie Chung loses her CBS Evening News job
Connie Chung was let go from her two-year-long job co-anchoring the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather in May 1995, telling the Associated Press she was surprised to be ousted — and only notified through her agent — since she thought the dual anchorship was going well. She said she declined CBS’s offer to make her Rather’s substitute. “I think that in 1995, it’s inappropriate for the only woman on the three major news programs to have anything less than a co-equal status,” she explained.
2005: Dan Rather steps down from CBS Evening News after controversy
Rather left the CBS Evening News in March 2005 after nearly a quarter-century as anchor — and shortly after the botched reporting of President George W. Bush’s National Guard service. In a 60 Minutes story, Rather had cited documents that appeared to show Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard, but the authenticity of those documents was questioned, and an independent review determined CBS News hadn’t met journalistic standards in its reporting.
2005: ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings dies
ABC lost its World News Tonight anchor in August 2005 when Jennings died of lung cancer at age 67, only a few months after the veteran newsman was diagnosed with the disease. “He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones,” David Westin, then president of ABC News, said in a statement. “In the end, he was not.”
2006: Jennings’ successor Bob Woodruff is injured in Iraq
After Jennings’ death, Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas became co-anchors of World News Tonight, but in January 2006, Woodruff and an ABC News cameraperson were seriously injured when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device in Iraq. Woodruff suffered a traumatic brain injury in the blast, and as he recovered, Vargas continued on World News Tonight, sometimes with substitute co-anchors, for four months before resigning and handing the show to Charles Gibson.
2006: Katie Couric goes solo on CBS Evening News
Katie Couric became the first full-time, solo female anchor of an evening news program in September 2006 when she took over the CBS Evening News with a salary estimated at $15 million, per The New York Times. “Sometimes I think change is a good thing,” she said on Today that April as she prepared to leave the NBC morning show after 15 years. “Although it may be terrifying to get out of your comfort zone, it’s also very exciting to start a new chapter in your life.”
2015: False statements end Brian Williams’ NBC Nightly News run
The job of NBC Nightly News anchor went to Lester Holt in June 2015 after an NBCUniversal review of Brian Williams’ reporting over a period of more than 10 years revealed “inaccurate statements about his own role and experiences covering events in the field” covering the Iraq War Williams, who had hosted the broadcast since 2004, later said on Today that he “told stories that were not true” after his memories “got mixed up.”
2017: Scott Pelley is ousted from CBS Evening News
In May 2017 came reports that Scott Pelley was out at CBS Evening News after nearly six years as anchor and that, according to Page Six, his office was being cleared out while he was on assignment. Two years later, he said on CNN that he lost his job because he “wouldn’t stop complaining to management about the hostile work environment,” per Variety.
2025: John Dickerson exits CBS Evening News
In October 2025, John Dickerson announced he’d leave CBS Evening News at the end of the year, after debuting as the broadcast’s co-anchor that January. CBS News President Tom Cibrowski said it was Dickerson’s decision, but Variety reported the news division had been scouting out new talent amid a drop in ratings, and it’s also possible Dickerson didn’t jibe with new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
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