Right after Walter Cronkite died, CBS decided to stop using his voice over in the intro of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, mainly figuring it was inappropriate to have a ghostly voice introduce their current anchor.It seemed like a respectful decision, but it felt a bit wrong to me. The voice over was a simple sentence: "This is the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric." That's it. It felt like a good way to pay tribute to his immense contributions to television news and to bridge the years between his era and the current one. And, shockingly enough, it wouldn't have felt creepy at all, just comforting.
Cronkite's family must have felt the same way, as they've given CBS permission to keep using his voice at the top of the broadcast. How long CBS will keep doing it is anyone's guess. But if Billy Mays can keep selling Oxi Clean from the Great Beyond, why can't Uncle Walter keep introducing the news?
This is what the intro looked (and sounded) like on the Evening News' first HD broadcast in 2008:
[via TV Week]
(Note: In looking for pictures of Cronkite, I just found a really wise-ass post I did about him in 2006. Wow. I was a hash dude back then. Maybe I didn't have enough fiber in my diet...)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-21-2009 @ 7:34PM
Europa said...
Don't be surprised if they stop using it sooner than you think. In our area (San Francisco bay area) I've noticed that we now have Oxi Clean commercials with a woman doing the voice over with a woman/female model doing the demonstration as well. I don't know if there were complaints locally or some one did a panel study or what. But I haven't seen a Billy Mays commercial on our air since he died.
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