WAPI-TV strongly favored NBC for national news programming; as a byproduct of this, when CBS and NBC expanded their early-evening news programs to 30 minutes in 1963, the "CBS Evening News" with Walter Cronkite did not air in Birmingham for the next two years. This was due, of course, to the fact that both networks fed their newscasts to their affiliates at 5:30 p.m. Central Time (as they continue to do today). Channel 13 aired its local newscast at 6:00 p.m., and prior to the passage of the Prime Time Access Rule by the FCC in 1971, prime time network programming began at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. This left no available room on WAPI's schedule to allow it to air the "CBS Evening News", even if station management had wanted to broadcast it, clearing only "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" in its normal time slot ("Huntley-Brinkley" was the only network evening newscast that was televised in Birmingham from 1963 to 1965, as WBRC-TV did not carry ABC's evening newscasts during that period).