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Subject: "CBS Evening News" Anniversary

CBS has heavily promoted the fact that there will be segments this week
 on Dan Rather's "Evening News" looking at major events of the past 50
 years to observe the 50th anniversary of the broadcast.

Depending on whether a twice-a-week broadcast counts, the "Evenine News"
 either IS celebrating it's 50th anniversary this week or won't celebrate
 it's 50th until the end of August.

It was 50 years ago this week (April 12th, 1948) that a twice-a-week news
 program produced by CBS for it's New York station was first seen on a
 network ("Network", in this case, meant Philadelphia). Douglas Edwards,
 who had been hosting the twice-a-week TV newscast locally in New York,
 remained the anchor until April, 1962.

It was on August 23, 1948 that CBS expanded the twice-a-week TV newscast
 into a five-nights-a-week (seen 7:30-7:45 P.M. Eastern through 1955,
 then at either 6:30 or 6:45 through the summer of 1963; and since 1963,
 seen either at 6:30 or 7 P.M. Eastern, depending on the market) program.

CBS probably decided to use the occassion of sending it's twice-a-week
 news show to Philadelphia to determine the 50th anniversary of the
 evening news and to show this week-long series of segments--plus,
 doing it now, Dan Rather would narrate the piece. Come the week
 of August 24th, he might be on vacation---and viewing levels in August
 are much lower than in April.

I would suspect there will be very little material from the Douglas Edwards
 era (1948-62), although they'll probably show Mr. Edwards' description
 of the sinking of the Andrea Doria and, if they can find an early
 kinescope, an excerpt from an early newscast of his.

I also suspect that except for the Kennedy assination, they'll probably
 use very little Walter Cronkite material prior to the fall of 1965,
 which is when the evening news switched to color (and CBS began to
 shoot most of their film stories in color as well).

One thing you probably WON'T see in this retrospective: the ill-fated
 pairing of Dan Rather and Connie Chung. If they do show a bit of Dan
 & Connie, I'd be surprised--but pleased that CBS had the guts to
 actually show a less-than-shining moment from their history.

Joseph Gallant

<notquite@hotmail.com>

P.S.: I believe that the April 12th, 1948 newscast was also the first
 regularly-scheduled CBS television program networked beyond New York.
 Later this Spring (I'm not sure of the airdate), CBS is supposed to
 have a special looking back at milestones in the 50-year history of
 the CBS television network in both news and entertainment. 

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