News program news, and often regularly included "feel-good stories" or humorous reports as the last items on their newscasts, as opposed to news programs transmitted thirty years earlier, such as the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite". From their beginnings until around 1995, evening television news broadcasts continued featuring serious news stories right up to the end of the program, as opposed to later broadcasts with such anchors as Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Diane Sawyer. News broadcasts in the United States were initially transmitted over the radio. NBC began broadcasts in November 1926, with CBS entering production on the 25th of
Walter Cronkite that time. On February 14, 1980, Cronkite announced that he intended to retire from the "CBS Evening News"; at the time, CBS had a policy of mandatory retirement by age 65. Although sometimes compared to a father figure or an uncle figure, in an interview about his retirement he described himself as being more like a "comfortable old shoe" to his audience. His last day in the anchor chair at the "CBS Evening News" was on March 6, 1981; he was succeeded the following Monday by Dan Rather. Cronkite's farewell statement: On the eve of Cronkite's retirement, he appeared on