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September 2, 1963…A Red Letter Days At CBS News

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

September 2, 1963…A Red Letter Days At CBS News

On a Monday evening 53 years ago today, the first half hour network news show debuted. From the CBS newsroom studio in the Graybar Building, adjacent to the Grand Central studios, Walter Cronkite reported for twice as long as anyone ever had on an evening news show.

The next Monday, September 7, NBC’s “Huntley Brinkley Report” did the same. Compared to today, their 22 minutes were full of the news they thought you needed to know, as opposed to today’s news fare which is “news” they think you would like to see.

The real news is in the first two blocks…the rest of it, you can find here on Facebook. -Bobby Ellerbee

“Evening News” marks golden anniversary of 30-minute broadcast

On Sept. 2, 1963, the “CBS Evening News” revolutionized journalism when it doubled in length — just in time for some of the most momentous stories in U.S. history

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9 responses to “September 2, 1963…A Red Letter Days At CBS News”

  1. Kurt Toy

    A minor correction. The following Monday was the 9th. The 7th was on a Saturday.

  2. Kurt Toy

    Network news hasn’t been the same since Cronkite’s day.

  3. NTSB Reporter

    Posted by Peter Katz — I remember it well, because I was the (very very young!!) producer of the evening news on WHDH-TV in Boston, and that’s when we moved the show to 7 pm and lengthened the newscast to a half hour to match the network. We were local color, and I had invented a method to chromakey the image of Walter signing off the network news onto what looked like a projection screen placed in the center area of our news set…without cropping any of the network image. When Walter said “And that’s the way it is…” and the network credits started to run on the network feed now showing on the screen between and behind the two anchors on our news set, one of our two anchors said, “Thank you, Walter,” and started the local show. All of this was long before the station had the digital capability which exists today to electronically manipulate the size and location of one video image within another.

  4. Tad Fogel

    This thread reminds me of the famous LBJ quote regarding the Vietnam War that “if I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost the nation” <>

  5. John Everett Smith

    I miss the days when they reported the News instead of today where they try to make it to serve their political agenda……it’s a real shame the American News can NOT be trusted……

  6. Michael Scott Ferguson

    Americans were ‘on the same page’ back then, and I never discount the great way the evening newscasts had to bring the whole country together.

  7. Frank Wendeln

    I know it had to be sometime in the 70s or 80s…more likely 76, so that would be tenth anniversary….CBS ran the full half hour broadcast on a Saturday, I think, but certainly a weekend afternoon. It was amazing history for a kid…and I thought “ohhh that’s so long ago” and comparably now, it’s 2006 and that doesn’t seem that long ago.

  8. Charlie King

    It is a shame that the kids of today, will never have anyone like Walter Cronkite, “The most trusted man in America.” I miss the news as it was presented during my early years working in Broadcast Television.

  9. Pierre Seguin

    http://youtu.be/NmQTfYTe044

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