12 TV Anchors Who Signed Off With Iconic Catchphrases
Dan Rather courageously tried out a new “curtain line” at the end of his CBS Evening News report on September 1, 1986, ending the broadcast with one word: “Courage.”
In a 2005 Television Academy interview, Rather explained that “courage” was his father’s favorite word — but “a lot of people thought it was wrong.” And a week later, he was finding other ways of saying goodnight.
(“My mother’s favorite word was ‘meadow,’ and maybe I could end the broadcast with ‘meadow,” Rather quipped in the interview. “That would have struck folks as even stranger.”)
But Rather was right, 40 years ago now, to try to find a sign-off as iconic as those of his predecessors Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Morrow. And soon, he did. Scroll down to read more about his catchphrase and those of other TV anchors.
Edward R. Murrow
Murrow started saying his famous slogan as he reported on German bombing raids on Christmas Eve 1940, The Guardian reports. “Merry Christmas is somehow ill-timed and out of place, so I shall just use the current London phrase — so long and good luck,” he said that night. He later ended his TV broadcasts by saying, “Good night, and good luck.”
Dave Garroway
The first host of NBC’s Today, Garroway ended each broadcast of the morning show by extending the palm of his hand toward the camera and saying, “Peace,” per The New York Times. Bryant Gumbel, one of Garroway’s successors on Today, did the same in 1992 as the show finished a week of broadcasts from Africa, according to Today.com.
Walter Cronkite
Cronkite, a longtime CBS Evening News anchor, said in a 1999 Television Academy interview that then-CBS News President Richard S. Salant wasn’t a fan when Cronkite started saying “And that’s the way it is” at the end of his broadcasts. “He said, ‘You’re telling people that’s the way it is. Well, we can make mistakes in that broadcast. It’s not necessarily the way it is,’” the newsman recalled. “But by that time, a couple of days had gone by, and people were already commenting on it. It just caught on instantly.”
Charles Osgood
For nearly a half-century, Osgood commented on the news of the day on his radio broadcast, The Osgood File, and said goodbye with the somewhat paradoxical sign-off “I’ll see you on the radio.” He kept up the habit as he hosted CBS Sunday Morning for more than two decades, as CBS News reported upon his 2024 death.
Hugh Downs & Barbara Walters
The tagline “We’re in touch, so you be in touch” is associated with Downs and his long tenure on ABC’s 20/20, though cohost Walters, who previously anchored Today with Downs, delivered the line on the show, too. Walters told the Television Academy in 2000 that Downs wanted to do 20/20 alone at first but told her he was glad she was the one assigned to be his cohost.
Lloyd Dobyns & Linda Ellerbee
Both Dobyns and Ellerbee said “And so it goes” at the end of NBC News Overnight broadcasts in the early 1980s. That phrase became the name of Ellerbee’s 1986 memoir and a point of contention in a 1989 episode of the sitcom Murphy Brown, in which Candice Bergen’s journalist character accused Ellerbee of stealing it from her, per The Free Press.
Dan Rather
“Courage” didn’t pan out for Rather, but another sign-off idea — “And that’s a part of our world” — caught on for the CBS Evening News anchor. In his 2005 Television Academy interview, Rather said the idea evolved from a suggestion from someone at a CBS station, who wrote to him and said, “You have a worldview, you cover the world, and how about something like, ‘That’s covering the world today’?”
Tim Russert
Russert’s closing line as a moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press — “If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press” — also became a Washington catchphrase, as Politico reported following his sudden death in 2008. Chris Wallace, then the anchor of Fox News Sunday, said at the time he found the slogan annoying but would give anything to hear it again, ABC News reported.
Charles Gibson
Gibson first used his ABC World News Tonight closing — “I hope you had a good day” — on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “The thing you said at the end of the show, that was good. Say that tonight,” ABC News producer Eddie Pinder told him the next day, as Gibson recalled to the Houston Chronicle.
Lester Holt
As NBC Nightly News anchor, Holt started saying “Please take care of yourself and each other” at the end of broadcasts near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As CultureMap columnist Ken Hoffman noted, that line was also the way Jerry Springer ended his talk show episodes. “[Holt is] so classy and so smart, I’m not at all surprised he shares the same sentiment,” Springer told Hoffman. “His heart shows. It doesn’t matter how he decided to use that sign-off. The times certainly warrant it.”
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Mike Wallace also said, "Good night and good luck" in quoting Morrow on his final time on "60 Minutes".
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