ABC World News Tonight with David Muir

History

The then-newly-launched ABC television network began a nightly newscast in the summer of 1948, when H. R. Baukhage and Jim Gibbons hosted News and Views. This was succeeded by After the Deadlines in 1951 and All Star News in 1952. In the fall of 1953, John Daly began anchoring the then-15-minute John Daly and the News. Daly, who served as host of the CBS game show What's My Line? contemporaneously, anchored the newscast until 1960, with multiple hosts and formats succeeding him. Anchors of the program during the early 1960s, sometimes for short periods, included Alex Dreier, John Secondari, Fendall Winston Yerxa, Al Mann, Bill Shadel, and the three-person team of John Cameron Swayze (formerly of NBC), Bill Lawrence, and Bill Sheehan. In 1962, Ron Cochran was appointed as full-time anchor, staying with the program, entitled, “Ron Cochran with the News”, until 1965. After Cochran left the program, Peter Jennings, a Canadian journalist who was 26 years old at the time, was named anchor of the retitled Peter Jennings with the News.

In December 1967, the inexperienced Jennings left the anchor chair and was reassigned by the news division as an international correspondent for the news program. The newly renamed ABC Evening News was hosted, in succession, by Bob Young (January 1968 to May 1968), and then by Frank Reynolds (May 1968 to December 1970), who was joined by Howard K. Smith in May 1969. The program expanded from 15 to 30 minutes in January 1967, nearly 3+1⁄2 years after both CBS and NBC had expanded their evening news programs to a half-hour.

Reasoner, Smith, and Walters

Harry Reasoner, formerly of CBS News and 60 Minutes, joined ABC News in 1970 to co-anchor ABC Evening News with Smith, beginning that December, replacing Reynolds. The ratings increased steadily, but still remained in third place, behind dominant CBS and NBC. In 1975, Howard K. Smith was moved to a commentator role, and Reasoner briefly assumed sole-anchor responsibilities until he was paired with Barbara Walters, who became the first female network anchor when she joined the program on October 4, 1976. Ratings for the nightly news broadcast declined shortly thereafter, possibly due in part to the lack of chemistry between Reasoner and Walters. Reasoner would eventually return to CBS and 60 Minutes, while Walters became a regular on the newsmagazine 20/20.

"First News" strategy (1967–1982)

Even in areas with three full-time network affiliates, ABC stations often opted to broadcast the news program in the 6:00 p.m./5:00 p.m. timeslot to entice viewers by presenting the day's national and international news first, thus making it more likely that they would stay tuned to the station's local newscast immediately following the program (or one half-hour afterward), instead of turning to CBS or NBC.

Starting in 1973, before the advent of closed captioning, PBS began airing an open captioned version of the ABC Evening News that was distributed to various public television stations throughout the U.S., airing mostly in late-night timeslots five hours after the original ABC broadcast. This version was produced by WGBH, the Boston PBS station, which provided the captions and repackaged the broadcast with additional news stories – some of which were of special interest to the hearing impaired – as well as late-news developments, weather forecasts, and sports scores inserted in place of commercials. It was originally titled The Captioned ABC Evening News, and later as The Captioned ABC News, and it was originally distributed by the Eastern Educational Network, before becoming a national program under PBS a year later. The practice continued until 1982, when real-time closed captioning was first introduced in the United States by the National Captioning Institute.

World News Tonight (first era)

Always the perennial third in the national ratings, ABC News president Roone Arledge reformatted the program, relaunching it as World News Tonight in July 1978. Reynolds, who was demoted when the network hired Reasoner, returned as lead anchor, reporting from ABC News' Washington, D.C. bureau. Max Robinson – who became the first African American network news anchor upon his appointment on the program – anchored national news from the news division's Chicago bureau. Peter Jennings, who also returned for a second stint, reported international headlines from the division's London bureau.

Occasional contributions included special reports by Walters, who was credited as anchor of the special coverage desk from New York City and worldwide, and commentary by Smith, who was easing into eventual retirement. The program's distinct and easily identifiable theme (whose four-note musical signature was eventually used on other ABC News programs) was written by Bob Israel. Ratings slowly climbed to the point where World News Tonight eventually beat both NBC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News, marking the first time ever that ABC had the most-watched network evening newscast.

In April 1983, Reynolds became ill, and ABC News brought in This Week moderator David Brinkley to fill in for Reynolds. This arrangement continued until July 4; when ABC news summoned Peter Jennings to leave London and anchor from Washington, leaving both him and Robinson to co-anchor the broadcast until Reynolds' planned return. However, Reynolds died on July 20, 1983, from bone cancer. A rotation of anchors hosted the program until August 9, 1983, when ABC announced that Jennings became the sole anchor and senior editor of World News Tonight, which took effect September 5, and on that day, the program began broadcasting from New York City on a regular basis. Bill Owen would replace Bill Rice as announcer for a year.

In September 1984, the program was renamed World News Tonight with Peter Jennings to reflect its sole anchor and senior editor. Robinson left ABC News earlier in 1984, after stints of anchoring news briefs and the weekend editions of World News Tonight; he died from complications of AIDS in 1988. With Jennings as lead anchor, World News Tonight was the most-watched national newscast from February 27, 1989, to November 1, 1996, but from then on until February 2007, it placed second behind its main rival, NBC Nightly News.

World News

In May 2006, Vargas announced her resignation from World News Tonight. Charles Gibson was then named sole anchor of the program, effectively replacing Vargas and her injured co-anchor Woodruff. Vargas cited her doctors' recommendation to cut back her schedule considerably because of her maternity leave, and her wish to spend more time with her new baby. She has since returned to co-anchor 20/20 and ABC News specials, and has served as a substitute anchor on World News Tonight under Gibson and his successors.

Woodruff, although still recovering from his injuries, returned to World News Tonight as a correspondent on February 28, 2007.

Some media analysts found the reasons for the appointment of Gibson as anchor to be merely a cover for ABC News's real intentions to bring stability to its flagship news program, which had seen its ratings slip, and to attract some older viewers away from the CBS Evening News with interim anchor Bob Schieffer. Indeed, the advertising campaign focused on Gibson's experience, calling him "Your Trusted Source", similar to a campaign for Jennings, "Trust Is Earned", in the wake of the Killian documents controversy at CBS and Brian Williams's assumption of the NBC anchor chair.

On July 19, 2006, ABC News announced that World News Tonight would have its name officially changed to World News with Charles Gibson. The network chose to make the, albeit minor, change to remove "Tonight" from the title to reflect the program's expansion into the "24-hour space created by the digital world".

In the February 2007 sweeps, World News with Charles Gibson achieved the number-one spot in the Nielsen ratings among the network evening news broadcasts, overtaking NBC Nightly News, marking ABC News' first victory since the week Jennings died in August 2005.

World News with Charles Gibson won the May 2007 sweeps period decisively over NBC Nightly News, marking Gibson's second consecutive sweeps win and widening the program's lead in the evening news race. It was the first time that World News had won consecutive sweeps periods since 1996, the year ABC News ceded the ratings crown to NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. NBC Nightly News retook first place in the November 2007 sweeps and the two programs remained in a tight race until the fall of 2008, when the NBC program established a consistent lead.

World News Tonight (second era)

David Muir became the weekday anchor and managing editor of the program on September 1, 2014, while retaining his duties as co-anchor of 20/20. At the same time, Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos assumed the news division's Chief Anchor position that had traditionally been assigned to the anchor of World News. Following the departure of Diane Sawyer, the title of the program was also silently rebranded back to World News Tonight for the first time since 2006, albeit with "ABC" attached to the title. Primary substitutes are Stephanopoulos, Rebecca Jarvis, and Amy Robach.

World News Tonight has broadcast from San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, and Brussels after terrorist attacks, and from Dallas after five policemen were shot dead in July 2016. In November 2016, World News Tonight was the most-watched network primetime newscast for the first time in 18 years. The last time World News held the top spot was during the 1998–99 season when Peter Jennings sat at the anchor's desk, according to Nielsen.

World News Tonight was the most-watched network evening newscast for the week of March 30, 2015. This marked the first time in seven years that the program finished at No. 1, beating out NBC Nightly News in all categories.

On August 10, 2020, World News Tonight marked 11 consecutive weeks as "America's Most-Watched Show".

On September 8, 2020, World News Tonight debuted a new title card, reintroduced the long-time Bob Israel-composed opening theme (replacing the Hans Zimmer theme), and revealed an updated set and new graphics package.

Following the 2023 Lewiston shootings, on October 26, 2023, World News Tonight began posting full broadcasts to ABC News' YouTube channel.

On March 7, 2025, World News Tonight re-located to Disney's new campus at 7 Hudson Square, maintaining a relatively similar (albeit upgraded) studio.

Anchors

Weekend newscasts

ABC first attempted an early evening weekend newscast in July 1975, when it debuted a Saturday bulletin that was anchored by Ted Koppel and taken over by Tom Jarriel and Sylvia Chase in 1977. The broadcast, however, was not carried by many stations, and was cancelled in January 1979.

Following the Saturday news cancellation, and after the flagship weeknight broadcast became World News Tonight, the program premiered World News Sunday on January 28, 1979, and expanded to a full seven days with the restoration of a Saturday newscast (World News Saturday) on January 5, 1985, years after NBC and CBS had each launched their own weekend evening news programs. These editions added the word "Tonight" to the program title in the mid-1990s, further unifying it with the weekday editions, and in the mid-2000s, their respective names were shortened uniformly to World News Tonight to correspond with those broadcasts. However, the original names were restored on July 19, 2006, concurrent with the retitling of the weekday broadcasts, but the opening title sequence displayed the name as World News for both the Saturday and Sunday editions.

Prior to 1975, the only network newscasts that ABC stations broadcast on weekends were 15-minute late-night updates on Saturdays and Sundays, known as ABC Weekend News and later, ABC News Weekend Report. The programs were fed to affiliates at 11:00 pm Eastern/10:00 pm Central and were seen in tandem with the stations' own late newscasts, although some stations opted to tape-delay the network updates until immediately before their regular sign-off time (rival CBS also offered a 15-minute Sunday night bulletin during the 1970s until 1997). Because of declining affiliate interest (in part because of the proliferation of 24-hour cable news channels such as CNN) and low viewership, ABC discontinued the late-night weekend reports in September 1991.

In addition, starting in 1973, weeknight co-anchor Harry Reasoner hosted The Reasoner Report, a half-hour topical analysis of important stories (especially breaking developments in the Watergate scandal) in the vein of CBS's 60 Minutes, which Reasoner himself co-moderated at two different times. Affiliates usually carried the program on Saturday evenings in the time slots where the main newscast aired on weeknights. In addition, starting in 1973, weeknight co-anchor Harry Reasoner hosted The Reasoner Report, a half-hour newsmagazine program featuring analysis and commentary on major news stories. The program was cancelled in 1975.(see above).

International newscasts

ABC News programs, including ABC World News Tonight, are shown for several hours a day on the 24-hour news network OSN News in MENA Region.

Various cable companies in the Caribbean previously simulcasted ABC World News Tonight from then-Miami affiliate WPLG. Similarly, cable companies in Canada simulcast the program with most airing from either Seattle-based KOMO, Boston-based WCVB, or Detroit-based WXYZ which operate as timeshift channels.

In the United Kingdom, the program was shown Tuesday through Fridays at 1:30 a.m. on BBC News, a channel that is frequently simulcast by BBC One at this time, meaning the program was broadcast on analogue terrestrial television in many parts of that country until the digital transition. The newscast was aired on a delay, in part because of the need to remove commercial advertisements, as the BBC's domestic channels operate as commercial-free services via a television license fee, replacing them with promotions for different BBC News special programs. The program was replaced by Asia Business Report and Sport Today on June 14, 2011, but later returned to the channel on August 20, 2012. It was also available on the BBC's on-demand service BBC iPlayer for 28 days after its domestic broadcast. The program was replaced again by Asia Business Report and Sport Today on March 30, 2015.

In Australia, WNT was aired every morning at 10:30 am. AET on Sky News Australia until it was moved to SBS and SBS Viceland in July 2019. WNT previously broadcast on New Zealand-based TVNZ Duke.

In Hong Kong, the program was broadcast live on TVB Pearl daily at 07:30 until 08:00 HKT until May 31, 2009, when it was replaced by NBC Nightly News.

In Japan, it airs on NHK BS 1 as part of the weekday morning program Catch! Sekai no Top News (Catch the Global Top News) and later on World News, and in clip form during the English language educational program Kōryaku! ABC News Eigo (Strategies! ABC News English) until its end in March 2021.

In Belize, Great Belize Television carries all editions of World News Tonight each weekday at 8:00 p.m. and weekends at 7:00 p.m.

Radio broadcast

Fargo-based radio station WDAY-AM simulcasts the weekday version of the program from local ABC affiliate WDAY/KBMY/WDAZ/KMCY.