NBC Nightly News is the flagship evening news program for NBC News.

The program succeeded the Huntley-Brinkley Report upon the retirement of Chet Huntley in 1970. At first, a troika of anchors, John Chancellor, Frank McGee, and David Brinkley presented the news on a rotating basis.

McGee left several months after the show began to anchor the morning news program NBC Today Show, but died of cancer shortly after assuming the morning news duties. Chancellor continued on as sole anchor until 1976, when the rotating anchor experiment was reinstated. The anchor rotation was continued until 1979 with Chancellor and Brinkley; but pressure from the NBC sales department ended it.

By that time, Chancellor was unable to attract the viewers Walter Cronkite was attracting on the CBS Evening News. During his tenure as NBC Nightly News anchor, he never was able to break the grip Cronkite had on the American news viewer, despite NBC's various changes to the show. Chancellor did, however, remain as an editorial commentator on the news for many years.

Tom Brokaw became anchor of NBC Nightly News on September 5, 1983. His presence attracted viewers, and during the 1990s, NBC Nightly News battled for the viewership lead with ABC World News Tonight, anchored by the urbane Canadian Peter Jennings. The once-dominant CBS Evening News, anchored by Dan Rather and hobbled by corporate cost cutting, slid to third place in the viewership wars.

In April 2004, Brokaw announced his retirement as anchor of NBC Nightly News after the presidential election of that year. His last broadcast was on December 1, 2004.

Brian Williams, a frequent fill in for Brokaw, assumed permanent anchor the following day, December 2, 2004.

External links

• NBC Nightly News http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/