NEW YORK — CBS will attempt to reinvent its evening newscast after Norah O’Donnell leaves the anchor desk following November’s presidential election.
The network announced Thursday that “CBS Evening News,” which still draws as many as 5 million viewers a night, will have a pair of anchors and draw on correspondents from the division’s other signature programs.
John Dickerson, political editor for CBS News, and Maurice DuBois, a local news anchor for the network’s New York station, WCBS, will helm the revamped telecast. The program will be moved back to its former home at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, after several years in Washington, where O’Donnell was based.
It’s the first time the network has tried a multianchor format since it paired Dan Rather with Connie Chung in the mid-1990s. ABC News also tried it in 2005 with Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff when it replaced the late Peter Jennings. Neither pairing improved the ratings of the programs.
This time around, the dual-anchor format is aiming to play up what CBS News executives are calling an “ensemble” approach that gives more on-air time to the network’s correspondents, including those on newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” which is the most-watched nonsports prime-time show most weeks. Margaret Brennan, the Washington-based moderator of “Face the Nation,” will also have a prominent role.
Bill Owens, who has run “60 Minutes” since 2019, will be supervising producer for “CBS Evening News” in addition to his current duties. Wendy McMahon, chief executive of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures, said she is putting Owens in charge to assure the newscast can tap into “the DNA of ‘60 Minutes.’”
The newsmagazine has never had a single host, long relying on a cadre of correspondents.
“It should be more about the reporters than one person,” Owens said in an interview. “We are not trying to copy ‘60 Minutes,’ but we want to bring in ‘60 Minutes’ values. We don’t want to be following what everyone else is doing.”
The changes come after O’Donnell announced she will end her five-year stint in the anchor chair to take a new role as a senior correspondent. The program ranks third in the evening broadcast news ratings, behind “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir” and “NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt.”
The network newscasts are no longer the agenda-setting platforms they were in the era of Walter Cronkite. But while the internet has upended the news business, the long-running programs remain appointment viewing for more than 17 million viewers a night, according to Nielsen data.
The audience is largely older, as younger viewers have migrated to streaming platforms.
CBS has tried a series of anchors over the years since Rather left the job in 2004 after 25 years, including a five-year stint by Katie Couric, who was lured away from NBC’s “Today.”
But the network has had trouble improving its competitive position going back to the mid-1990s, when it lost a number of affiliates that provided potent audience lead-ins with their local newscasts.
