John Charles Daly
Daly's first foray into television was as a panelist on the game show "Celebrity Time". This led to a job in 1950 as the host and moderator on a new panel show produced by Goodson–Todman, "What's My Line?" The show lasted 17 years with Daly hosting all but four episodes of the weekly series.
Television news in the United States
"ABC Evening News" began airing in 1953, hosted by John Charles Daly. Daly had been a well-known CBS radio correspondent, though today he is best remembered as the emcee of CBS's long-running game show, "What's My Line?", which he hosted while serving as ABC's anchorman. Daly left ABC in 1960 and was succeeded by a frequently expanding list of successors that included John Cameron Swayze, Bill Laurence, Bill Sheehan, Ron Cochran, a young Peter Jennings, and Bob Young. In 1968, Frank Reynolds became anchor of the program, and it soon expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. A year later, Howard K. Smith joined as co-anchor, reporting from Washington. In early 1971, Harry Reasoner left CBS News and replaced Reynolds as the New York anchor. Reasoner became the sole anchor in 1975, and Smith provided commentaries. In 1976, Barbara Walters joined the program as Reasoner's co-anchor in New York, thus becoming the first woman to serve as a regular network news anchor. (Marlene Sanders had previously served as an occasional substitute anchor). Other women who would occasionally appear in daytime and weekend anchor roles in earlier days were Pauline Frederick of ABC and NBC and Nancy Dickerson of NBC. From the early 1970s forward, females such as Lesley Stahl of CBS, Carole Simpson of ABC and Jessica Savitch of NBC began to appear in significant on-camera newscasting roles. Reasoner was very unhappy with the addition of Walters, and the two did not work well together. With Roone Arledge as President of ABC News, the ABC Evening News was succeeded by "ABC World News Tonight" with a trio of anchors: Frank Reynolds, Peter Jennings and Max Robinson. Jennings assumed solo anchor responsibility in 1983 following Reynolds's death.