WCBS-TV - News Operation

News Operation

Upon becoming WCBW in 1941, the station broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. Shortly after the war began, WCBW (like virtually all television stations) sharply cut back its program schedule and the newscasts were canceled. After the war, a once-or-twice weekly news program returned to the WCBS-TV schedule, first anchored by Milo Boulton, and later by Douglas Edwards. Edwards' nightly news broadcast became The CBS Evening News with Douglas Edwards when CBS opened network TV operations early in 1948 and made Edwards' newscast its regular network news offering.

In the 1950s through the mid-1960s, WCBS-TV's local newscasts were anchored by CBS News correspondent Robert Trout. In 1965, Trout left for a new assignment in Europe and was succeeded by Jim Jensen. Jensen had only come to WCBS-TV a year earlier (he previously was at WBZ-TV Boston), but was already well known for his coverage of Robert F. Kennedy's 1964 campaign for the United States Senate. His gravelly voice and demeanor were very similar to that of Walter Cronkite, and he was reportedly the model for the character of Jim Dial (played by Charles Kimbrough) on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown.

During the 1960s, WCBS-TV battled WNBC-TV (channel 4) for the top-rated news department in New York. After WABC-TV (channel 7) introduced Eyewitness News in the late 1960s, WCBS-TV went back and forth in first place with Channel 7. This rivalry continued through the 1970s. For much of the early 1980s, New York's "Big Three" stations took turns in the top spot. During this time, three of the longest-tenured anchor teams in New York—Jensen and Rolland Smith, WABC-TV's Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel, and WNBC-TV's Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons—went head-to-head with each other.

WCBS-TV had many well-known personalities during this era: anchors Dave Marash, Carol Martin, Marilyn Salenger, Rolland Smith, Michele Marsh and Vic Miles; meteorologists Dr. Frank Field, John Coleman and Irv "Mr. G." Gikofsky; reporters Meredith Vieira, Randall Pinkston, Tony Guida, John Stossel, Chris Borgen and Arnold Diaz and sportscaster Warner Wolf. Vieira, Pinkston and Guida later moved to the CBS network, and Vieira eventually moved to NBC where she co-hosted the early morning Today show.

In 1987, WABC-TV surged to first place. As the 1990s began, channel 2 found itself losing increasing ratings share to WNBC. One of management's more controversial responses was to take Jensen off the anchor desk in late 1994 and demote him to host of a Sunday morning public-affairs show, Sunday Edition. He also hosted a few episodes of the regular "Sports Update" show on Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. At the time, Jensen had served as an anchor longer than anyone in New York television history (he has since been passed by WABC-TV's Beutel and WNBC's Scarborough). The move was roundly criticized by many in New York, especially since WCBS-TV had supported him after he went into drug rehabilitation in 1988.

Another controversy involved an exchange between Jensen and co-anchor Bree Walker, whose fingers and toes are fused together (the condition is known as ectrodactyly). After Walker did a report about her experience with the condition, Jensen asked Walker, on the air, if her parents would have aborted her had they known she would have been born with the condition. Although Walker kept her composure on air, she was obviously disturbed by the question, and soon left the station . This incident took place shortly before Jensen's entry to drug rehabiliation. Station management came under more fire in 1995 when Jensen was forced to retire shortly after the Westinghouse Electric Corporation announced it was buying CBS. By the end of 1995, Channel 2 had crashed into last place for the first time in its history while WNBC surged to a strong second place – a pecking order that would remain in place for more than a decade.