CBS News long-timer Harry Smith is heading to NBC News. A source inside CBS said Smith is joining NBC to be part of a new primetime newsmagazine with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. The network plans to launch the new program during the 2011-12 season.
Former CBS News and BBC producer Rome Hartman has been named executive producer of the new program, which will feature stories from NBC News personalities including Meredith Vieira.
NBC Developing Newsmag With Williams
NBC is developing a weekly newsmagazine to be hosted by Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. The show, described as “hard news with attitude,” is a contender for NBC’s fall schedule, which the network will unveil Monday at its upfront presentation.
There was an aborted trip to London, a late-night Alabama check-in for tornado coverage, a White House correspondents’ dinner where the NBC News anchor sat with a military leader who gave no indication that an order had been given to attack Osama bin Laden’s compound and the next night’s announcement of the terrorist’s death. He was America’s anchorman, invited by David Letterman to discuss the bin Laden story on the Late Show, and by Charlie Rose to be a fill-in moderator for a panel of thinkers talking about the mission.
he February finishing order for the network evening newscasts didn’t look much different, with Brian Williams‘ NBC Nightly News taking top honors, followed by Diane Sawyer’s ABC World News and Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News finishing last. But ABC was the only network to show growth (it was up 1%).
Exclusives
Two of the most prominent television news anchors covering the protests in Egypt this week, Brian Williams and Katie Couric, have exited the country. The anchors’ departures came on a day of increasing violence and intimidation directed at journalists in Egypt.
Of all the news commercials on the networks this year, one running this fall for NBC Nightly News might be the most unorthodox. In it, the anchor Brian Williams recommends that people record the 6:30 p.m. newscast if they will not be home in time to watch live.
