On June 2, another new era of the decades-long evening news battles began at 6:30 p.m. NBC debuted the first episode of NBC Nightly News with its new anchor, Tom Llamas. He succeeded Lester Holt, who, after a decade behind the Nightly desk, is moving to a role at Dateline.
Aside from the new face, little changed. The studio appeared largely the same, as was the format. That was almost certainly a deliberate choice. After all, when NBC launched its ad campaign for Llamas, it leaned on its history and heritage, and the fact that the anchor has been familiar to NBC News viewers for the past four years, while also referencing Holt’s status as the most trusted news anchor by Americans.
“Legacy isn’t handed down, it’s carried forward. As the world changes, we look for what endures, we look for a constant,” the spot declared, featuring video and audio from Nightly anchors past, before segueing to Llamas. “And from one era to the next, trust is the anchor.”
Llamas ended his first Nightly as he does every show, with a thanks to the viewers, meant to underscore the role he hopes to play in their daily lives: “My thanks to all of you as we start this new adventure together. Tonight, and always, we’re here for you.”
Of course, Llamas assumes the anchor chair of NBC Nightly News at a strange and uncertain moment for the format. The network evening newscasts are still considered the flagships of the broadcast news divisions, the anchor chairs where legends like Cronkite, Jennings, Brokaw, Walters and Rather informed the nation day in and day out, and reassured them in times of tumult and crisis.
And they remain the primary news digests for tens of millions of Americans who turn on their TV sets at 6:30 p.m. most evenings, breaking down complex topics in a format that is easy to understand.
“I think the core need that evening news continues to serve is just going to become even more important, as we see this proliferation and explosion of AI generated slop out there, being human and being trusted and being real is the currency,” a senior news executive tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And the value of that, I think, is going to be exponential as well, because we are fast approaching a time where it’s going to be very hard to tell what is real, what is bullshit, what actually happened and what didn’t happen.”
But broadcast TV has not been immune to the squeeze impacting the larger TV business, and network news divisions have historically been more important to building brand equity than being profit centers of the business.
The result has been cost cutting and consolidation across the network news divisions in recent years, with teams merged together and some talent cut loose.
The morning shows like Today and Good Morning America have transformed into lifestyle brands that touch on health, food and fashion, while the Sunday public affairs shows now set the news agenda with newsmaking political interviews.
The evening newscasts find themselves in an uncomfortable position: The millions of viewers who rely on them want a digest of the most important stories that happened that day, but the next generation of viewers is getting that news off of linear platforms. In private, news executives acknowledge that they are laser-focused on finding ways to reach those viewers, knowing that while they might not turn on the TV at 6:30 p.m. every night, the networks may still find some way to serve them a similar product.
YouTube has emerged as a preferred landing pad. The Google-owned video platform is the most-watched streaming service, per Nielsen’s Gauge, and all of the network evening newscasts now publish their episodes there, in some cases adding hundreds of thousands of incremental viewers.
But there are other efforts in play, including NBC’s approach with Llamas: As soon as he signs off on the network, he begins anchoring Top Story, the NBC News Now streaming show. NBC executives are quick to point out that the average viewer of the streaming show is decades younger than the typical evening news viewer.
Tom Llamas is hosting ‘Top Story,’ a streaming show, after ‘NBC Nightly News’ wraps.
NBCUniversal
And in the meantime, despite the fears of what AI will do to the larger news environment, AI disruption is looming for the format that defines evening news broadcasts.
Two sources tell THR that an AI-powered news digest is in development by at least one TV news operation, one that could deliver the news of the day in a more tailored format for digital consumers, combining human-reported segments with AI-powered personalization and voiceovers or anchors.
It isn’t science fiction: Last year NBC Olympics used an AI generated version of Al Michaels to deliver personalized recaps during the Paris Olympics, and last month ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro told reporters that the sports media giant is actively developing an AI-powered SportsCenter that would deliver news only about the teams, sports and players that its users care about, perhaps delivered by AI versions of the anchors they already know.
“We are very much focused on on AI, and are working with some of our key talent right now, getting them on board with this idea of having the storytelling being driven by AI,” Pitaro said.
As a veteran news producer lamented, while it may first take shape in the world of sports, an AI-powered evening news is “inevitable,” though consumers would likely watch whenever and wherever they so choose, rather than on the TV set at 6:30 p.m.
“There will be, for sure, consumer products coming to market. I think the hard part for audiences is going to be figuring out ‘how do I know I trust this and not that?’ So if you’re talking about like — name your AI product — go give me a summary of the top world headlines and read it back to me in the voice of Donald Duck, sure, that can be done today,” the senior news executive says. “Or you know that I like stories about quirky crime trials; I want to know about all the cute cat and dog videos; I’m really a politics geek, and I want to know the stock price of Tesla at all times. Read that to me in the voice of Angelina Jolie every morning when I wake up at six. There will be lots of products like that. But when you get into like, a war has just broken out in X place. I don’t think we’re turning to AI at that point to say, what the hell is going on here? Or a plane has just exploded over the skies of Los Angeles. What just happened? That’s where AI can’t step in.”
Whatever ends up happening, network executives have to grapple with the fact that shaking up the evening news is hard.
Look no further than CBS, where a high-profile reimagining of the CBS Evening News is still evolving, with network executives tinkering with the format to keep loyal viewers while creating something that can appeal to a wider swath of the population. CBS made significant changes to the broadcast early this year, with Norah O’Donnell exiting for a new role at the network, and political correspondent John Dickerson and WCBS anchor Maurice Dubois taking the helm as co-anchors.
“We’re making tweaks and changes as we go, looking at what works and what doesn’t and making adjustments,” a source says. “We always knew the broadcast would be different on Day 243 than it did on Day 1.”
The co-anchor format is not new, of course, but CBS also moved the program from Washington D.C. back to New York, and named frequent correspondents who would appear in recurring segments. Bill Owens, who added oversight of the program in the revamp, told THR at the time that he wanted to bring some of the ethos from 60 Minutes to the daily newscast.
Owens, of course, resigned last month amid larger tumult at Paramount Global, as did Wendy McMahon, the executive who spearheaded the changes. What their exits mean for the show in the medium and long term are not yet clear.
ABC News, meanwhile, has exuded a quiet confidence at ABC World News, led by anchor David Muir. The network has tried to expand the newscast to streaming by leveraging the scale of Disney+ to make it a new platform for the newscast, a strategy that it hopes will stand out. Muir has also taken some segments from the show and expanded them into longform programs that stream on Hulu.
David Muir at Disney’s upfront presentation to advertisers.
Muir made his case directly to ABC advertisers at Disney’s upfront May 13. “We continue to have the largest audience every night with World News Tonight and often the most watched program on all of television,” Muir told those in attendance at a cavernous room at New York’s Jacob Javits Center. “Think about it this way, every month we reach as a newscast 40 million viewers. I’m proud to say that we’re the number one newscast for the ninth consecutive year now. And there’s never been a more vital time to be America’s most trusted and most-watched newscast, and we thank all of you here in this room.”
The fate of the evening newscasts also crosses over with larger questions about the fate of the star TV anchor. No one denies that today’s star anchors can drive an audience (particularly the older audience that is still committed to linear TV).
But in a media environment that is splintering, and a future where consumers may be able to get their news delivered by whomever they like (there’s no reason the estate of Walter Cronkite couldn’t sign a likeness deal with an AI company, for example), how should these companies think about that star power in the future?
Agents aren’t too concerned. Sure, there is a tightening of budgets across the industry for talent not firmly in the A-list, but in a world where trusting the source becomes all the more important, those A-listers should be ok, at least for a while.
“Stars are stars. Mega stars are always going to get paid in any business, whether it’s news, movies, television, music,” UTA vice chairman Jay Sures noted in an interview with THR in April. “Mega stars bring something that’s unique, and I think they’re always going to do well, and they bring something bigger than just ratings to the companies that they work for. Sometimes they’re the face of the company, and that’s hard to put a value on.”
A version of this story appeared in the June 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
