By David Bauder / Associated Press
NEW YORK — The “CBS Evening News” gets a new face and an additional run time starting Monday.
Jeff Glor takes over as the broadcast’s anchor replacing Scott Pelley, who was shown the door — or, rather, sent back across the street to “60 Minutes” — after six years this past spring. The network also announced Friday that the evening news will be replayed each night at 10 on the CBSN streaming service, an additional viewing opportunity for people who aren’t around a television set at dinnertime.
The shift to a 42-year-old anchor and effort to make the evening news more accessible to more screens represents a generational change.
“I hope that it can be valuable to watch it anytime between 6:30 and midnight,” Glor said.
Glor’s ascendance is evidence of another shift in perception in television news. The evening newscasts had long been the flagships for news divisions, home to leaders like Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather. Morning shows are where the money is for broadcasters. Cable news networks, where the light never goes out, suck away attention — even though more than 20 million people sit down to watch the ABC, CBS or NBC newscasts each weekday evening.
When ABC hired David Muir to anchor “World News Tonight,” it turned to a young (he’s 44), lesser-known newsman instead of a glittery, expensive star. The network has been rewarded as ABC eclipsed Lester Holt on NBC’s “Nightly News” in the ratings.
Glor fits that mold. He also shares an upstate New York lineage — Muir grew up in Syracuse, New York, Glor went to college there, and they worked at different Syracuse local news stations at the same time. When Glor’s hiring was announced in October, Muir sent a congratulatory note and bottle of barbecue sauce from that city’s best-known ribs joint.
Glor, whose first job was delivering newspapers, said he appreciates the storied history of CBS News. A short introductory film about him posted online flashes pictures of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and Pelley, while skipping past Rather and Katie Couric, whose CBS careers ended less pleasantly.
With youth, Glor has time to become a familiar face to viewers and to change his broadcast’s long-time status as the third most popular show in a three-network race. CBS has made significant progress making its morning news show more competitive; success has proven more elusive in the evening.
“You’ll see some structural and rhythmic changes in the show — nothing too jarring to start with,” he said. “I think we all realize this is a long-haul proposition.”
Steve Capus continues as the show’s executive producer. Glor said he’d like strong, “deeper dive” reporting to be one of the show’s signatures, and that it doesn’t conflict with the mission to summarize the day’s news.
Glor grew up in the Buffalo, New York area and is married with a 7-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. He’s been a reporter at CBS News for a decade.
“They don’t care what job daddy just took,” he said. “They still come crashing into our bed in the middle of the night.”
He’s been busy in the days before taking over the new job being interviewed by CBS affiliates across the country, not wanting to bypass the chance to build bridges between local and national news before Monday’s debut.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “I suppose some nerves are good, it means you want to do a good job. I’m excited. I’m ready.”
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