CBS Evening News greeting "Good evening everyone, coast to coast" to begin each broadcast. On November 30, 1956, the program became the first to use the new technology of videotape to time delay the broadcast (which originated in New York City) for the western United States. Walter Cronkite became anchor of the program titled "Walter Cronkite with the News" on April 16, 1962. On September 2, 1963, the program, retitled "CBS Evening News", became the first half-hour weeknight news broadcast of network television and was moved to 6:30 p.m. Eastern time (the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" on NBC expanded to 30 minutes exactly one week
Walter Cronkite Cronkite concluded that "The failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy." During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. "What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime." He was a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International. In 1998, he supported President Bill Clinton during Clinton's impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of