John F. Kennedy became the primary source by which people were kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. In fact, television started to come of age before the assassination. On September 2, 1963, Kennedy helped inaugurate network television's first half-hour nightly evening newscast according to an interview with "CBS Evening News" anchor Walter Cronkite. Newspapers were kept as souvenirs rather than sources of updated information. In this sense his assassination was the first major TV news event of its kind. TV coverage united the nation, interpreting what went on, and creating memories of this space in time. All three major U.S.
CBS Evening News background on the news set (which had been used since the 2008 elections) was replaced by a replica of the globe fixture during the Cronkite era, and the James Horner theme was replaced by the 1987–91 theme composed by Trivers-Myers Music that was used during the Rather era. In his first 9 months in the anchor chair, Pelley gained an additional 821,000 viewers. CBS News also enjoyed increases in its audience for special news events. After election night, 2012, Variety wrote, "With Scott Pelley front and center; the Eye was up 8% from four years ago." The CBS Evening News