NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News stayed within its ranks on Wednesday to name correspondent Jeff Glor as anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” a storied broadcast led by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather in the past but now a distant third in the television ratings.
Glor replaces Scott Pelley, who was forced out awkwardly this spring after six years. Anthony Mason has been filling in since Pelley returned to “60 Minutes” full-time.
CBS News President David Rhodes said that Glor “represents the best journalistic values and traditions that will carry the evening news into a digital future.”
Evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC have diminished in influence since the days that their anchors were considered the leaders of television news. But collectively, they still draw more than 20 million viewers each weeknight. Each has a larger audience than anything on cable news.
It doesn’t seem to have escaped CBS’ notice that ABC’s “World News Tonight” has lately eclipsed NBC’s “Nightly News” at the top of the ratings behind its own youthful anchor, David Muir. Muir is 43 and Glor is 42. It won’t be the first time the two men have competed: both worked in local news in the late 1990s in Syracuse, New York, where Muir grew up and Glor attended college. Lester Holt anchors NBC’s “Nightly News.”
The “CBS Evening News” generally gets about 2 million fewer viewers than the ABC newscast each night. Pelley earned strong reviews for his newscast but didn’t gain in the ratings, which led to losing his job in May — a decision that became public when news was leaked that his office at the evening news was being cleaned out.
Mason, who is 61, returns to his job as a reporter and anchor of CBS’ Saturday morning newscast.
The network has promoted from within for its most recent big jobs, when Jane Pauley replaced Charles Osgood on the popular Sunday morning newscast and John Dickerson took over from Bob Schieffer as “Face the Nation” moderator.
Glor worked in local news in Syracuse and Boston before joining CBS News. He has anchored weekend editions of the evening news in recent years and also was an anchor for CBS’ streaming service. As a reporter, he’s covered the shootings at Sandy Hook, the Superstorm Sandy in the New York area and the Boston Marathon shooting. He was stationed in Jackson, Wyoming for CBS’ coverage of the total solar eclipse this summer.