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Maurice and John were indeed at the desk together; they're not alternating anchor duties. Margaret Brennan led with the first story, providing a mix of reporting and analysis. With two male anchors, which networks and cable have avoided for several decades at this point, it's not a surprise that they would feature her in a prominent role. Good balance. The first block featured two packages: one on Deep Seek and one on an espionage story. They're essentially doing the opposite of what WNT and NN have done. Instead of shortening packages and squeezing in as many stories as they can, they're covering fewer stories, their packages are much longer, and most are followed by extended talk-backs between both anchors and the correspondent. The first two packages were followed by a fast-paced "Round Up" reading of the day's headlines, and then the first commercial break. During the first commercial break, they displayed headlines and kept a dynamic live shot of the anchors during the commercial break. The latter, in particular, was a pretty cool concept. Was able to grab a quick pic (attached). This didn't continue in the subsequent commercial breaks, though. And there's probably a better use for the lower left corner than showing temperatures around the world. Maybe sports scores, stock market closing numbers, sunsets from U.S. cities, or an image corresponding to the headline to the right. The show ended with both anchors giving a commentary on the bravery of firefighters across the country. This show isn't going to beat ABC or NBC, but maybe it'll beat previously iterations of CBSEN. It seems like a solid product and, with fewer stories and correspondents, it's probably cheaper to produce.

Sadly there is a segment of the population that eat this stuff up, no matter how most of us feel. The good news, most don't know where to even find the station. Doe it even register in terms of ratings? The bad news, it is a bubble, reinforcing what folks want to hear and believe. Something all media is becoming.

I liked 99.9% of what I saw. Didn’t love the live shot of the anchors during the commercial (and world temps); but this is a work in progress so I won’t nitpick too much. Loved the lack of political news and used of the video walls. Worth-noting is that both Nightly and World News lead with the ICE raids and Evening News lead with a story (AI threat) that viewers likely would have never heard about. Overall, great start and hopefully viewers (and others) take note because this is how a nightly network newscast should be done.

@Geoffrey I think the two anchor format is just to be different from NBC & ABC. By God, this may be their best revamp since Bob Schiffer. Hopefully CBS stays the course. Loved the international coverage, more of that please Overall I think CBS shines when they do what they do best: hard documentary style/mature/intellectual reporting, not imitating the competition.

I was very pleased with what we watched, and I'll definitely be watching the repeat on CBS News 24/7 later tonight. It's definitely got 60 Minutes meets PBS News Hour meets local news. It was a nice relief to just have the intro going into the A-Block and not have a headlines sequence to open the broadcast. So happy that the 1987 theme is back (in its 2011 remastered version), but I can also agree that it would've been nice to hear the 1991 theme for the first time in 19 years.

I enjoyed the broadcast. Hopefully CBS won't let their intrusive thoughts win lol. But yes, a very solid broadcast. I love the similarity to a local newscast, but national. And smart.

Observations from tonight, Not that you asked for it lol.... This was good. Slower paced, zero sensationalism, PBS quality. Definitely better than NBC and ABC journalistically speaking. 1. Love the return of the 1987 Rather theme. I would love to see the 1991 theme comeback but this is great 2. No headlines tease, straight into the broadcast. This is a nice contrast to the two minute headlines on WNT. 3. They seem to be going for a more discussion-based format because Maurice and John had an extended conversation with Margaret Brennan for their lead story. 4. The CBS EN logo is in the Upper third. European style. 5. Documentary style L3 6. No rapid flips between frames and images during packages like NNN, and WNT 7. No lower third graphic present during the entirety of the story 8. No use of "breaking news" at all 9. Slower paced than the competition, definitely has a 60 minutes feel to it. They did a news Roundup at the end of the A block to rapidly acknowledge the major stories in the world. 10. The set looks good. The lighting on the talent is to washed out though. If they dim the lighting like they did for Inside Edition interview it would look better.

I really liked the first broadcast of the new EN. The graphics look great - simple and not kept onscreen yet effective and useful (and great lack of BREAKING NEWS), the set design is very nice, well-utilized and vibrant, and DuBois & Dickerson make a good team and the stories are great & informative. I look forward to watching this new era as it continues.

Phil McGraw has always been a fraudulent assclown, and the sooner this waste of bandwidth of a TV network disappears, the better off we would all be.

This is so bad that Jerry Springer and even Morton Downey Jr. are rolling in their graves.

I've seen opens, and now a montage from Archiva on YouTube. I have to give it a solid A-. I thought seeing no tease, no BREAKING NEWS stingers, and weather coverage (regardless if it was significant or not) was refreshing. This is night one so I'll take what I've seen with a grain of salt because it doesn't mean it'll be consistent every night. However, I do think CBS has finally found a working formula and I hope it sticks. CBS deserves to be #1 again every night, but it'll take a bit more tweaking and many more viewers to lure them all back in. For now, night one gives me a solid A- impression.

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Today's counterprogramming on Merit Street against football...Dr. Phil embedded in ICE raids in Chicago. Even FNC wouldn't do this because they wouldn't want to be sued for filming people without permission, but I think any last guardrail against responsible broadcasting for Dr. Phil has been long passed. This is something you'd see from a YouTube streamer, not someone who used to at least have some respect in the industry. Both him and TBN are being very highly irresponsible and going against everything they used to stand for; the elder Crouches weren't good people but at least at the end of the day they still never would have gone anywhere near this or worried about ratings outside their niche.

Another thing to note: the headlines music bed was used during the story teases when going out to the first commercial break. So even if its not being used in its traditional location in the broadcast, it's still being used for something.

Interesting first broadcast. No cold open tease. Just the open and right into the first story, which was talking with Margaret Brennan about the new Chinese AI app that scared Wall Street today. Then a 60 Minutes-like piece from Jim Axelrod on Chinese intelligence threats. CBS got lucky with today's news that made that story, which they had to have been working on for a bit, seem extra relevant. The new president who is sucking up so much oxygen everywhere else got about ten seconds of coverage during a headlines roundup. Lower-thirds are very different than anything else on CBS, and only seem to be used for talent. (I don't think lower-thirds need to be permanent on the screen but they can be useful for identifying people and places.) There is not even the small CBS eye on the screen. The circular CBS Evening News logo appears on the top left of the screen during video playback. The studio looks nice, but it feels like local news. They have this nice newsroom but chose to have that behind the cameras, not in front. Perhaps they'll make more use of the newsroom in shots later on. WCBS also mentioned that the set will feature augmented reality but I didn't see any of that tonight. During the first commercial break, they had some text headlines/teases on the bottom of the screen, some "world temperatures," and a small box showing Maurice and John in the studio. The camera just kept swaying from left to right and back showing the talent just sitting there. Not very exciting. Is it really necessary? Why does the logo say "Eye On America America"? Love that theme song. Is this the third time they've used it, going back to the 1980s? Definitely a nice first show. Still not sure I understand why they need two anchors. Wonder how fill-ins will be handled. Will be interesting if CBS stays the course or gets impatient in 6 to 12 months.

Bruh, just saying, if even Fox News won't show them, then that says something.

How does this clown continue to scam viewers?

Actually, Kate Bolduan was Wolf's co-anchor for the second hour (at 6 p.m.?) for a bit. I'm not sure how "official" it was as I don't think her name was in the graphics and I don't recall her being in promos. But she was definitely there. This was until Kate was tapped to launch New Day with Chris Cuomo ad Michaela Pereira.

Been such a long time since the early 1980s, when the multi-anchor/multi-city format became passe. Remember the Huntley/Brinkley Report and then NBC Nightly News? Chet Huntley (1956-70), John Chancellor (1970-82) and Tom Brokaw (1982-82) anchored from New York. David Brinkley (1956-81) and then Roger Mudd (1979-83) co-anchored from Washington. How about the first few years of World News Tonight from ABC News? Peter Jennings from London, Max Robinson from Chicago, Frank Reynolds from Washington and Barbara Walters as the forth anchor. Awesome they're making the old-school very cool again, but with a twist. Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson as the two-man anchor team from New York. Margaret Brennan from Washington. Throw in Meteorologist Lonnie Quinn with the weather news. You got yourself a cool twist on the old-school format. Never in the history of the CBS Evening News had that New York anchor/Washington anchor format like NBC and ABC had. Not even during the days of Douglas Edwards, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather

I haven't seen it listed on any programming guide. One would assume they will announce when it will air during the Evening News.

Jessica Moore and Krisitine Johnson are anchoring again tonight. I think they are still testing pairs, but again who knows. Jessica and Dick seem to be the main candidates. If it was definitely Allen Devlin why wouldn't he be on tonight?

Sadly you have to question her judgement. She put both Dr. Oz (twice reprimanded by FDA due to fraudulent claims and failure to disclose equity interests) and the fraud Dr. Phil who pulled this disgusting stunt.

We've got another game show coming ... https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcberman1/2025/01/27/half-hour-game-show-scrambled-up-in-development-for-syndication/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIE1LxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTmyquKICLBw_ngQ6ruZ_7bX0nUglP_g5hmzdJ03OSjt7hn0WSHT2HdBKA_aem_k0uaXnd7IEH2eGsJyHcsig

Okay, that set looks quite good. I particularly love the graphics behind the anchors.

Off the bat they win some goodwill points for bringing back the ‘87 theme.

It's Jimmy Fallon whose show cut back to four (new) episodes a week, not Kimmel.

I didn’t feel that the Washington DC set was grand. This looks much warmer. I wonder if they will keep the music. I’d like the Dan Rather era music to make a comeback.

CBS Newscasts arent exactly first place outside of 60 Mins and Sunday Morning. IMO expanding news output doesn't make sense for CBS. US broadcast television schedules are already saturated with local and national news. Yet another newscast would just be just more of the same: Trump, wildfires and the and the lastest mass shooting. CBS is going for a national/local synergy look. Im not opposed to a local set design for national if it still looks good I find the DC set pretty simple. Its just a room full of video walls, but it looked great once they darkened the graphics from light to navy blue for CBSEN.

I think people forget that Graham isn't exactly some mom-and-pop shop. Graham Holdings is a diversified conglomerate and their TV stations are just one of their many businesses. And Graham Holdings is still headquartered in Washington.

Griffin also has their food business keeping them afloat.

So this is obviously a Jack Morton Worldwide Set. It's a mirror of KCAL. Are they really using a local market set for a national newscast?! Wild. I guess that they are, according to Variety.

We have heard WAAY being one of those stations keeping their weather team and now it sounds like stations are quickly doing a 180 in making a video and letting folks know that stations are keeping their weather teams in place.

Considering the extreme weather that part of the country gets, I'm not surprised one bit.

They already did. Maurice, Kristine, Lonnie and Otis sat on the couch reminiscing about the 14 years they spent together between 5:20 and 5:30. Kristine mentioned Maurice and Lonnie will be on the CBS Evening news. Alice came on after to anchor the next half hour with Kristine on the 5pm news

Vivid Zero has pulled back the curtain on the ABC O&O package.

Probably because his shows are barter and don't cost the station anything.

It absolutely was; the air quotes was me being facetious/poking fun of how the media isn’t really calling it what it is

It wasn’t a gesture. It was a Nazi salute. Let’s call it what it was.

WLFI set is from when they went HD under LIN, WTHI set when they built their new building in 2012 under LIN, and WFFT set from their HD days under Nexstar. Under Heartland, I think both THI and LFI did add some more people back and improved their reporting. I think if Heartland hadn’t sold, they would have gotten new sets or updated sets.

LIN hasn't even existed in a fucking decade! Heartland must've been cheapasses too.

Those complaints can go right to the circular file after whatever perfunctory acknowledgement they wish to provide. There are a plethora of stations that don’t run news operations. There is nothing that states if your station had one that it must continue in perpetuity, regardless of economic factors. The realities of the ad economy are harsh. Viewers have more choices, the revenue pie gets split more ways, and something’s gonna give. Does it suck for some viewers? Yep. For the hard-working people laid off? Double yep. That is always true with any cutbacks in any industry. But life is rough. If there is some bottomless-pocketed investor out where, and who meets the unrealistic standards people put forth, who is it? Who is going to pump that kind of money into let’s just say the Allen portfolio? What would be their actual return on investment? Much like the contraction of the print news industry, it’s a disconcerting change to people who lived a long time with a different reality. But that world? It’s gone.

The FCC and Congress are not going to “investigate” scaling back news operations for economic factors. And there are few to no unicorn operators out there who will sink money into a pit from which it will never return.

At least unite the graphics packages, WTHI is still on a LIN-era system. I like unique looks but not because you starve your stations to make more cheap game shows with expensive comedians and court show hosts.

My, how things have changed. In 2021 and early 2022, Byron Allen was thought of by some as the next great corporate CEO in broadcasting. I once worked for a GM who ran any show of Allen’s he could get his hands on. I’d wager $0.25 that’s not the case any longer.

That pretty much failed in night one based on what viewers were seeing

Dallas Fort Woth is a bigger metro area by about a million people. About 8.1 million people call the DFW metro area home. About 7.1 million people call the Houston Metro area home. The only reason Houston is the “biggest” city in Texas by population is because it is—quite literally— the “biggest” city in Texas. Back in the day, before Houston really started growing, the city of Houston annexed as much of the (then undeveloped) land around it as possible. So when developers began to build suburban housing developments in those undeveloped areas—they became part of the city of Houston, rather than becoming a part of a different “suburb” city. Dallas didn’t do that to the same extent. When Dallas began to grow, suburbs like Richardson, Garland, Plano, etc. beat the city of Dallas to annexing undeveloped land into their cities. In total, the City of Houston takes up 665 square miles, with a city population of 2.3. million. The City of Dallas takes up 340.5 square miles. And has a city population of 1.3 million. So the city populations area proportionate to the land area each city takes up. That said, Dallas has far more suburbs than Houston. And also shares a metropolitan region with Fort Worth, another major city with a population nearing one million within its city borders. ill give you another example. Oklahoma City is the 20th largest city in America by population. But it is the 42nd most populous metro area—because it doesn’t have many suburbs. It’s basically just Oklahoma City and a few suburbs. tldr: DFW contains more suburbs than the Houston metro, and has a bigger metro population because of this.

Honestly, I won't be surprised and will laugh hysterically when this has consistently better ratings than News Nation.

What a waste of space. As if the world needs MORE cable channels...and more cable channels to not watch and be forced to pay for...

CNN is expected to announce significant layoffs tomorrow as part of an effort to reposition for strength in digital.