The Evening Duet

Five nights a week, around dinnertime, the TV sets in some 3,916,000 U.S. homes* are tuned to a 15-minute news program, NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report. Although CBS's Doug Edwards commands a slightly larger audience, no other television newscast has collected more major awards (seven in all) or has tried Report's distinctive formula: two newscasters of equal rank, working from different cities as a team.

The NBC evening duet by Chester Robert Huntley (New York) and David McClure Brinkley (Washington) presents the news with unusual (for TV) restraint: its stars are both unexcitable men who seldom pontificate but project an air of unassuming authority and easy informality. "I'm a newsman using TV as my special medium," says Chet Huntley. The key to their success is the fact that they are pros (both have spent most of their working lives as newsmen of the air, with early stints on newspapers) dedicated to the principle that news is not show business.

With Nobody Watching. As partners, the stars of the Huntley-Brinkley Report are complementary rather than competitive--an unusual circumstance in the jealously competitive TV club. Huntley, 47, is the straight man, tall (6 ft. 1 in.), saturninely handsome, serious, inclined to take a panoramic view of the news, more inclined to pundit. This comes out most in his own Sunday show, Time: Present --Chet Huntley Reporting, in which he explores predominantly heavy subjects: integration, world trade, public education. A graduate of Western broadcasting (Seattle, Los Angeles), he was brought East by NBC in 1956 to do the Sunday show, is one of TV's best-paid newsmen (total annual income: $100,000).

The other half of the team, David Brinkley, 39, who has never lost all of his North Carolina drawl or his essentially mischievous disposition, provides the show's seasoning. Viewers have learned to rely on frequent injections of his subtle and astringent wit and to watch for the point of his sharp needle--often delivered with a squirming body English that is as familiar a Brinkley trademark as his lopsided smile. A onetime United Press staffer, he began doing TV newscasts in Washington in 1943, when there were only a few hundred sets in the city ("I had a chance to learn while nobody was watching"), and still claims to be astonished at his own success ("TV grew up, and I happened to be standing there''). He does some specials in addition to the show with Huntley, writes all of his own material, remembers when TV brought him $60 a week, now collects $75,000 a year.

"People Paid Attention."The Huntley-Brinkley combination is the product of pure chance. In 1956, planning coverage of the national party conventions, NBC decided to send in some fresh faces, dispatched Huntley from New York and Brinkley from Washington, expecting them to spell each other. They made it a team operation, brought off the assignment so handsomely that NBC decided to make them a habit. (Said Brinkley wryly of this sudden prominence: "I did what I'd been doing for years, but people paid attention.") In October 1956, Huntley and Brinkley--who had not even met before their paths crossed at the conventions--went on the air with the two-headed, 15-minute newscast, have been there ever since.

Not until they go on the air does either know what the other will say; their story assignments must be written--and in some cases reported and filmed--in the hours just before show time. The news budget is restricted to five or six items, and which man takes the lead depends entirely on whether the best story is in Huntley's territory or Brinkley's. What they turn out ranks high not only with Nielsen but also with official Washington. Asked by a survey agency last August to name their favorite news program, members of Congress gave Huntley-Brinkley Report top rank (32.8% v. 16.1% for the second choice, ABC's John Daly). In a personal note, Viewer Dwight Eisenhower told Huntley that his telecasts in advance of the Khrushchev visit were a major factor in determining the official U.S. approach.

Another memorable letter in their heavy fan mail came from a woman whose devotion made them wince. She and her husband were so attached to the show, she said, that when they went to sleep at night, they always used the Huntley-Brinkley sign-off, one of them saying, "Good night, Chet," and the other replying, "Good night, David."

*A figure based on the Nielsen rating.

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