39 Years Ago In TIME

With a generational shift taking place in the network anchor chairs, some wonder if the evening news can survive intact. But when TIME put CBS's WALTER CRONKITE on the cover, the newscasts were riding high.

Cronkite has constructed an on-screen personality that makes him the single most convincing and authoritative figure in TV news--no mean rank in a medium where competition is uncompromising, where the three nationwide networks scrutinize one another's shows and crib from one another's operations in a desperate drive for the top of the ratings. As a better-informed public has demanded more and more information about current events, TV news programs have changed from loss leaders and have begun to start paying their way. And as the networks have made the most of them, news shows like Cronkite's have become one of the most important and influential molders of public opinion in the U.S. Some 58% of the U.S. public get most of their news from television, reported an Elmo Roper poll last year. --TIME, Oct. 14, 1966

Read the entire article at time.com/years