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 News" on September 2, 1963, when the show was expanded from 15 to 30 minutes, making Cronkite the anchor of American network television's first nightly half-hour news program. Cronkite's tenure as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" made him an icon in television news. During the early part of his tenure anchoring the "CBS Evening News", Cronkite competed against NBC's anchor team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, who anchored the "Huntley-Brinkley Report". For much of the 1960s, the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" had more viewers than Cronkite's broadcast. A key moment for Cronkite came during his coverage of John F. Kennedy's