ABC was formed in 1944 when the federal government required NBC to sell off one of its two radio networks. Nine years later, the network merged with the United Paramount Theaters chain. ABC’s first post-merger television evening newscast began in the fall of 1953, and featured former CBS correspondent John Charles Daly, who was probably the most seasoned and telegenic anchor among the three major networks. But ABC had relatively few affiliates; low ratings and fewer resources than CBS or NBC. For those reasons, Daly was never a major threat to the other networks. Another factor was that viewers knew Daly much better as the host of CBS’ panel quiz “What’s My Line.” Still, Daly was ABC’s go-to man as the evening news anchor, host of presidential conventions and main correspondent of special news events until 1960, when he left the network. Between 1960 and 1965, ABC went through several anchors and formats on its evening news program, with no improvement in the ratings. Then came Peter.

Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings was born in Toronto on July 29th, 1938. His father, Charles Jennings, later became news director of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. By the time he turned 24, young Jennings was covering news for the commercial CTV network. ABC’s news director at the time, Elmer Lower, hired him as a reporter in 1964.

In a bold move, ABC promoted Jennings to the anchor chair, making him the youngest news announcer ever on an American broadcast network. But “Peter Jennings With The News” was not a success. Many ABC affiliates refused to carry the program and Jennings was considered too “green” to be an anchor, especially when compared with his more seasoned competitors on the other networks. ABC hoped that Jennings’ good looks and youth would attract a younger audience, much as the network’s entertainment division tried to grab young adults. But Jennings’ age, Canadian background and voice inflections worked against him. ABC’s lack of resources didn’t help. The network didn’t expand its evening newscast to 30 minutes until 1967, the same year it was finally broadcast in color. By that time Jennings opted to leave the anchor chair and do some reporting; the move was made in late 1967 by mutual agreement. His beat would be international news; Jennings opened ABC’s Beirut bureau as its director and covered world events for the network during the next decade.

After another round of musical anchor chairs, ABC stumbled upon its most successful effort to date. Harry Reasoner, one of the stars of CBS News and Walter Cronkite’s fill-in, began negotiating with ABC in 1970 after CBS refused to give him a large pay increase. Reasoner agreed to co-anchor the “ABC Evening News” with fellow CBS refugee Howard K. Smith for 200 thousand dollars a year.

He easily earned the salary. Not only did Reasoner urge every ABC affiliate to carry the news program, he worked well with Smith, providing a contrast to the other networks. By 1975, ABC was still third in the evening news race, but the margin between it and second-place NBC was closer than ever. Flush with success, Reasoner was given a new contract, and this time, it stipulated him to anchor the newscast alone.. (Smith would be relegated to occasional commentary; he would leave the network by the end of the decade.) But the sword cut both ways, and without Smith, Reasoner was not as appealing to viewers as a solo act. The “Evening News” fell in the ratings.

In 1976, executives decided the way to get ABC’s ratings back up was to hire a big name. And they did--NBC “Today” co-host Barbara Walters. The first woman ever to co-host a U.S. evening news program on weekdays, Walters drew tremendous interest at first. But the much-hoped-for partnership with Reasoner never jelled. Walters, a skilled interviewer, was criticized for her lisp and speech patterns. She soon became the butt of jokes on NBC’s late night comedy “Saturday Night Live;” Gilda Radner’s character of “Babwa Wawa” hurt the journalist badly. Walters didn’t get much support from Reasoner, who hated the idea of a female co-anchor; his body language and occasional snippy remarks on the air made it clear he wanted to be somewhere else.

The Walters-Reasoner debacle came as ABC’s prime time lineup soared in the ratings; as the new number one network, ABC executives finally decided to upgrade its long-neglected news organization–which some claimed was “last with the least.” Roone Arledge, who made ABC a force in sports coverage, was tapped to run the news department as well. Unable to lure a major name to anchor the “ABC Evening News,” Arledge tinkered with the format by instituting a “whip-round” style: Reasoner and/or Walters would set up a story, then hand it off to a reporter in the field, who would then introduce another story and another reporter. It left less air time for the co-hosts and allowed Arledge to showcase his top reporters.

In 1978, Reasoner left ABC and returned to CBS, where he resumed his work on “60 Minutes.” Walters was made a “special assignment” reporter who managed to snag major interviews with top news makers. She eventually hosted the network’s news magazine “20/20" and her own prime-time celebrity specials; she’s currently a co-host/producer on ABC’s daytime talk show “The View.”

Arledge created yet another new format for the evening news, now christened “World News Tonight.” Reporter and previous anchor Frank Reynolds was “first among equals,” and was based in Washington; Peter Jennings returned to cover foreign news from the network’s London desk. Newcomer Max Robinson became the first African-American co-anchor by covering domestic news from Chicago. Arledge made the program faster-paced and used the latest graphic machines to display information on the screen that helped viewers understand key points about a story. The reporters become more aggressive in getting scoops and breaking news. The strategy worked: “World News Tonight” rose in the ratings, helped in part by ABC’s improved prime time performance; within a year, it was challenging NBC for the number two slot behind CBS.

By the early 1980's, “WNT” occasionally hit number one in the ratings, a first for ABC. But Frank Reynolds started missing shows because of ill health; by early 1983, he left the show and succumbed to bone cancer that July. Arledge decided the time was right to have just one anchor on the show, and asked Peter Jennings to be sole announcer. (Max Robinson left ABC soon after; he died from AIDS in 1988.)

Unlike his unsuccessful anchor stint in the 1960's, Jennings finally came into his own--more seasoned, sharper and with years of reporting experience under his belt. As one ABC News writer noted, “He’s now as good as he used to think he was.” By the late 1980's, “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” became the highest-rated evening newscast, a first for ABC and a lead Jennings would hold through the mid-1990's when NBC and Tom Brokaw surged ahead. Jennings told “Newsweek” magazine that ABC lost its number one ranking in news because he refused to air as many “sensationalistic” stories as his competitors (the O.J. Simpson murder trials, for instance) while he increased the number of stories from overseas. (Arledge retired as ABC news chief in 1998; he died in 2002.)

As 2005 began, Jennings–by now an American citizen-- was looking forward to regaining the number one slot against NBC and CBS, both of whom had new anchors. But on April 5th, the usually unflappable anchor told his audience in a raspy voice that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He vowed to “continue to broadcast on good days,” and was hopeful his voice would improve.

Sadly, Jennings never returned to the anchor desk after that broadcast; he continued treatment while keeping in touch with his ABC News colleagues by e-mail. On August 7th, 2005, Jennings died. (ABC continued to call the newscast “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” for a week after the anchor’s death, before dropping his name from the title.)

In December 2005, ABC announced that reporters Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas would become the new co-anchors of “World News Tonight.” Less than a month after they began their new roles, Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt were injured from a roadside bomb while covering the war in Iraq. And in February 2006, ABC announced Vargas was pregnant. From February to May 2006, the co-hosts of ABC’s breakfast show “Good Morning America,” Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, took turns co-hosting with Vargas until her maternity leave began. Although Sawyer wanted to be sole anchor of “World News Tonight,” ABC executives decided on Gibson, a longtime fixture in the news department before his stint on GMA. The revised “World News With Charles Gibson” (the “Tonight” was dropped) made its debut on July 19th, 2006. Since that time, Gibson’s show has slowly closed the gap with NBC’s Brian Williams and is a close number two in the evening news race.