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Every NBC Nightly News Anchor, From Lester Holt to Tom Brokaw to John Chancellor
Look back at every man who's anchored the network's weekday news broadcast, NBC Nightly News.
Every night, millions of Americans tune into NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt to learn more about the world in which we live — and millions more have been coming to NBC for that information for decades.
The storied broadcast began airing in August 1970 as a replacement for its predecessor news program, The Huntley–Brinkley Report, following the the retirement of Chet Huntley. Though it's long been a one-man show at the anchor's desk, it began as a rotating three-man enterprise and has also been co-anchored at various points in its history.
Below, get to know the men who've helmed the anchor desk for the last 54 years.
Lester Holt
2015-Present
Lester Holt became the anchor of NBC Nightly News in June 2015. He joined the NBC News team in 2003, following three years at MSNBC (where he also worked until 2005).
Prior to his tenure at NBC and MSNBC, he spent 19 years as a local news journalist on CBS -owned and -operated stations.
In 2013, he portrayed a news anchor on the fictional "Channel 8" on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 15, Episode 6 ("October Surprise").
Brian Williams
2004-2015
Brian Williams was the anchor of NBC Nightly News from December 2004 through February 2015. He went on to be the chief anchor on MSNBC until his retirement in December 2021.
He first joined the network in 1993 after 12 years reporting at various local news outlets. He anchored the Saturday version of Nightly News and served as the network's chief White House correspondent before starting The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC and CNBC in 1996, where he served as both anchor and managing editor.
Tom Brokaw
1982-2004
Tom Brokaw became the sole anchor of NBC Nightly News in September 1983 after serving as its co-anchor alongside Roger Mudd for 18 months first. He retired from that role in December 2004, following the presidential elections, and continued to serve as a special correspondent for the network until his full retirement in January 2021.
Following the death of longtime Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert in June 2008, Brokaw served as interim moderator of that program.
Hie got his start in television journalism in Sioux City, Iowa after dropping out of the University of Iowa in 1959, but returned to college and finished his degree at the University of South Dakota in 1962 — shortly after which he restarted his career as a television journalist in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1965, he moved to Atlanta to cover the civil rights movement for ABC affiliate WSB in Atlanta. He then joined NBC News and moved to Los Angeles, where he covered stories for the network and anchored the 11:00 news for local affiliate KNBC.
He became NBC News' White House correspondent and moved to Washington D.C. in 1973, where he also anchored the Saturday version of Nightly News. He then joined TODAY as a co-host with Jane Pauley in 1976, and remained at that desk until 1981.
Roger Mudd
1982-1983
Roger Mudd served as the co-anchor for NBC Nightly News — alongside Tom Brokaw — from April 1982 until September 1983.
It was announced that Mudd would be joining NBC News as the network's Chief Washington Correspondent in June 1980, after he'd spent 19 years at CBS News.
He began his journalism career in 1953 as a print reporter at The Richmond News Leader and as a news anchor on the Richmond radio station WRNL, then moved to Washington, D.C. in 1956 as a reporter and later anchor for the radio station WTOP. He joined CBS News in 1961.
Following his stint as an anchor at NBC Nightly News, he became a co-moderator of Meet the Press alongside Marvin Kalb in 1984. After leaving Meet the Press in 1985, he co-anchored the NBC News programs American Almanac and 1986 with Connie Chung.
He left the network in 1987 and retired from journalism in 1993, spending time as an academic and history documentary anchor until his death in 2021.
David Brinkley
1970–1971 and 1976-1979
David Brinkley co-anchored Nightly News with John Chancellor and Frank McGee from its launch in August 1970 until August 1971, when Chancellor was made the sole anchor and Brinkley became a nightly commentator. He was asked to co-anchor with Chancellor again in 1976, but Chancellor returned to being the sole anchor in 1979.
Brinkley then founded and anchored NBC Magazine, a prime-time news show, in 1980 but he departed the network in September 1981 after Mudd and Brokaw were announced as the new co-anchors for Nightly News.
Brinkley got his start in journalism while still in high school, penning articles for his local newspaper, the Wilmington Morning Star, before briefly heading off to college. He joined the Army after the outbreak of World War II, but was medically discharged after a year and began working for the wire service, United Press International, in 1942. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1943 and got a job working for the NBC-owned radio station there. In 1945, NBC made him the moderator of the local news program, America United, and, in 1952, he became the Washington correspondent for the News Caravan, the national nightly news broadcast of the time.
In 1956, he was paired with New York-based journalist Chet Huntley, and the two began anchoring the network's new nightly news program, The Huntley–Brinkley Report. It ran until Huntley's retirement in 1970, when NBC Nightly News premiered.
Following his departure from NBC, Brinkley moved over to ABC and began hosting its Sunday news program, This Week with David Brinkley. He left the show in November 1996 and retired from journalism in 1997.
He passed away in June 2003.
Frank McGee
1970-71
Frank McGee co-anchored NBC Nightly News from August 1970 until August 1971, alongside John Chancellor and David Brinkley.
McGee got his start in radio after World War II in Shawnee, Oklahoma before taking a job as a newscaster for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City in 1950. He was made news director at the Montgomery, Alabama affiliate in 1955, and was hired by NBC News in 1957. He became a well-known political correspondent for the network and hosted a variety of longer-format news programs before his brief time as an NBC Nightly News anchor.
Following his stint at NBC Nightly News, McGee became the co-host of TODAY alongside Barbara Walters in October 1971.
His last show was April 11, 1974; he died of complications from multiple myeloma six days later. His doctor told the New York Times that he'd been diagnosed four years prior and checked himself into the hospital for pneumonia after his last show.
John Chancellor
1970–1982
John Chancellor was the anchor of NBC Nightly News for the first 12 years of its existence — 1970 until 1982. He continued to provide commentary on the broadcast until 1993, when he retired from journalism.
He began his career in 1948 as a copy boy at The Chicago Sun-Times, and moved his way up the ranks to a general assignment reporter before being laid off in 1950, according to the Washington Post. He then took at job with the NBC affiliate in Chicago, was eventually promoted to be the network's Midwest correspondent and bureau chief. From there, the network made him a foreign correspondent and he reported from Vienna in 1958 and Moscow in 1960.
He returned to the United States to anchor TODAY in 1961 and left the desk in 1962 to become the network's White House correspondent.
He briefly left the network in 1965 to run Voice of America during the Johnson Administration, but left the agency in 1967 to return to NBC as a correspondent for The Huntley-Brinkley Report in 1968, and was ultimately named the anchor of its successor, NBC Nightly News.
He passed away in 1994.
