Classic Television - Prime Time

NBC Nightly News

Original channel

NBC

Original run

August 3, 1970 – present

The Huntley-Brinkley Report was renamed NBC Nightly News in August 1970 upon the retirement of Chet Huntley. At first, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, and Frank McGee formed a rotating troika. At least one, usually two, and very rarely all three anchored the program on a given night. Except for the few nights when one anchor soloed, each evening's program included one news anchor in New York City and one in Washington, as had been the case on Huntley-Brinkley. Brinkley's appearances were always from Washington and McGee's from New York. Chancellor moved between New York and Washington depending on his partner for the evening. Newscasts on Saturday and Sunday were known as NBC Saturday Night News and NBC Sunday Night News, respectively, until sometime in the 1970s.

On April 5, 1982, Tom Brokaw, who had been anchor of Today since 1976, took over in New York, while Roger Mudd became anchor in Washington. Mudd was dropped from the broadcast and Brokaw became the solo anchor of Nightly News on September 5, 1983, the same day that his ABC competitor, Peter Jennings, became sole anchor of World News Tonight. Brokaw's presence slowly attracted viewers, and during the 1990s, Nightly News battled for the viewership lead with ABC World News Tonight. By 1997, Nightly News had solidified its first place rating, a spot it would retain solely for ten years. The once-dominant CBS Evening News, anchored by Dan Rather, had lost a substantial portion of the audience it held during the Cronkite era and slid to third place in the viewership wars.

Brian Williams, a frequent substitute for Brokaw, became the newscast's permanent anchor on December 2, 2004. The program held onto the #1 ratings spot from Williams' first day, averaging about 10 million viewers weekly until February 2007, when it slipped behind its closest competitor, World News with Charles Gibson. However, after a few months, Nightly News regained its lead. Since then, it is the only evening newscast to increase its audience, and has now been America's most-watched evening newscast for over a decade. According to Nielsen Media Research, it once again currently averages a weekly audience of approximately 10 million viewers.