Tom Brokaw began coanchoring theNBC Nightly
Newsin 1981. Two years later, his coanchor moved on,
leaving Brokaw as the sole host. His career path took
him from local news in the Midwest and Southern
California through to Washington and eventually to
the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) News.
Peter Jennings returned to the anchor desk on the
same evening—September 5, 1983—that Brokaw be-
gan as the sole anchor. Jennings had anchored the
evening news for the American Broadcasting Com-
pany (ABC) when he was in his twenties. He was con-
sidered a prodigy; his father was a legendary Cana-
dian journalist. By his own admission, Jennings was
ill-prepared at such a young age to take on the impor-
tant role of anchoring, so he stepped aside and served
as a foreign correspondent for ABC for many years.
Dan Rather replaced a legend, Walter Cronkite, at
the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), taking
over the anchor chair on March 9, 1981. His career
began in his native Texas, but he was quickly hired by
CBS. At the network, he moved from reporter to
cohost of60 Minutesbefore succeeding Cronkite.
“Corporatization” of News Brokaw, Jennings, and
Rather were giants, but not necessarily because of
how long they each held the critically important role
of news anchor. Their importance resulted from the
recognition that, beginning in the 1980’s, network
television news had begun to change, and they were
the men who witnessed the transformation of the
network news program. Capital Cities purchased
ABC in 1985. One year later, General Electric took
over NBC. CBS underwent a significant managerial
change during that same year. In the new corporate
environment, network news divisions were no lon-
ger allowed to be financial “loss leaders.” That is,
they were no longer expected, or even allowed, to
lose money on the theory that an excellent news de-
partment would build the overall reputation of its
network, thereby contributing to the larger bottom
line.
In the past, the news departments were expected
to spend whatever money it took in order to broad-
cast relevant news and information from anywhere
in the world. Considering that Cold War hostilities
between the Soviet Union and the United States
continued through the 1980’s and that political and
military unrest existed in various world hot spots in
decades prior, there was plenty of news to report. If
the networks lost money in the process of informing
the public, that was acceptable, because it helped
build the audience for their other programming.
However, with the “corporatization” of news, news
divisions were expected to make money themselves,
ensuring that the types of stories these men—espe-
cially Jennings—considered important (namely, in-
ternational news) would be swept aside as the 1980’s
came to an end. Instead, lighter, more feature-based
reports became more critical. They were cheaper to
produce and, according to many network execu-
tives, of more interest to the public.
During his time as a foreign correspondent,
Jennings reported from (among other places) Rome
and Beirut. ABC still had bureaus in those locations
during the 1980’s, but less than two decades later
they, along with five others, were shuttered. This
trend would continue as the three networks closed
more international news bureaus in later years. It
was Jennings who, among his anchor colleagues,
spent the most amount of time overseas; however,
the newscasts that Brokaw, Rather, and he anchored
benefited from a strong stable of international news
correspondents and stories.
The audience numbers that Brokaw, Jennings,
and Rather enjoyed during the 1980’s were in a
steady decline in later decades. Nielsen Media Re-
search reported that in the early 1980’s more than
fifty million people per night watched a network
newscast. By the early twenty-first century, that fig-
ure had dropped by almost half. Why such a precipi-
tous decline? In the 1980’s, cable news was still in its
infancy, the Internet had not been fully developed,
and the notion of a family gathering at home for din-
ner was not as passé as it seems today.
Impact Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather were influ-
ential because they became anchors during a critical
transition in television, when networks adopted a
corporate mentality. News from around the world
was thought to be less relevant, and technology still
had not swept aside conventional viewing habits.
These men were not dinosaurs, but the relevance of
their newscasts was about to slide.
Further Reading
Alan, Jeff.Anchoring America: The Changing Face of Net-
work News. New York: Bonus Books, 2003. Though
light on historical research, this book does pro-
vide interesting snapshots of Brokaw, Jennings,
Rather, and other former and current network
news journalists and anchors.The Eighties in America Network anchors 703