Italian
A new, retooled “CBS Evening News” won’t launch until early next year, but it already has a sequel.
CBS News unveiled plans Wednesday to launch “CBS Evening News Plus,” a 30-minute continuation of its overhauled flagship newscast that will stream online and air on certain CBS-owned stations. Already, the new half-hour program, which will be anchored by John Dickerson, will appear on KCBS in Los Angeles, KPIX in San Francisco, KOVR in Sacramento and WFOR in Miami.
“John is a true multiplatform journalist. From TV to streaming… from podcasting to magazines and books… John has a command of distilling news and storylines for diverse audiences amid a firehose of information and headlines,” said Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS’ news, stations and syndication operations, in a memo to staffers. “These capabilities will fuel a lot of what we’ll see nightly on ‘CBS Evening News Plus.’”
Watching the network evening-news has for decades been a standalone experience. Now, CBS is working to make it part of a broader media play.
Popular on Variety Norah O’Donnell will wrap her tenure as the anchor of the venerable “CBS Evening News” on Friday, January 24, and the new version of the program, led by Dickerson and Maurice DuBois of WCBS, debuts Monday January 27. A new on-air team that includes weathercaster Lonnie Quinn and Washington-based “Face The Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, aims to break news and offer more depth, rather than trying to run down dozens of items that surfaced earlier in the day in the space of less than 30 minutes.
Under McMahon, CBS News has tried to spur new interest in a broader array of streaming content, all of which appears on the free, ad-supported CBS News 24/7. A fourth hour of “CBS Mornings,” dubbed “CBS Morning Plus,” streams and appears on certain CBS stations, and debuted in September.
Alturo Rhymes, a 20-year veteran of CBS News, has been named executive producer of “CBS Evening News Plus.” He has worked as an executive story editor and co-senior broadcast produce at the evening news, and now will help lead what could become a format of its future.
For Dickerson, the assignment represents something of a continuation of duties. The anchor has since 2022 led an hour-long 7 p.m. newscast on CBS streaming platforms that aims to provide provide insight and historical context around the events of the day to offer viewers a deeper understanding of the news cycle.
