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 added to the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2001 that would have required TV broadcast companies to provide free airtime to candidates. Cronkite criticized the present system of campaign finance which allows elections to "be purchased" by special interests, and he noted that all the European democracies "provide their candidates with extensive free airtime." "In fact," Cronkite pointed out, "of all the major nations worldwide that profess to have democracies, only seven – just seven – do not offer free airtime" This put the United States on a list with Ecuador, Honduras, Malaysia, Taiwan, Tanzania, and Trinidad and Tobago.