“Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News.” From the very first edition in 1956 until the last in 1970, that is how the Huntley-Brinkley Report signed off. Chet Huntley anchored the bulk of the news from New York and David Brinkley specialized in political news from Washington, DC The two were paired up on the evening news after they had garnered favorable attention when they anchored NBC’s coverage of the national political conventions together the year before. Their partnership helped NBC beat the competition at CBS: Douglas Edwards with the News. While Edwards was a good broadcaster, unlike Huntley and Brinkley he was not a journalist. From this point in time news anchors were expected to be journalists.
The music that played underneath the closing credits was the second movement (scherzo) of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This is the original 1952 recording with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra that was used on the Report. The music always started with the six notes and was faded out when they ran out of time. The program did not use an opening theme. It was not uncommon for news programs at the time to use classical music.
Beethoven – Huntley-Brinkley Report close
(117 votes, average: 4.32 out of 5)
Loading...