CBS Morning News for live coverage. The "CBS Morning News" title was originally used as the name of a conventional morning news program that served as a predecessor to the network's current morning program, "CBS This Morning". For most of the 1960s and 1970s, the program aired as a 60-minute hard news broadcast at 7:00 a.m., preceding "Captain Kangaroo" and airing opposite NBC's "Today". Walter Cronkite and sportscaster Jim McKay both anchored the original "CBS Morning News" at one time. When CBS reformatted the early morning broadcast, the "CBS Morning News" became a pre-dawn 30-minute news broadcast. The program first aired in its
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