Network Glossary

Bureau

An office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate geographic location or scope of coverage: a Tokyo bureau refers to a given news operation’s office in Tokyo. Foreign bureau is a generic term for a news office set up in a country other than the primary operations center. A Washington bureau is an office in the capital that covers news related to national politics and government in the United States.

Prime time

The hours on weekdays between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., in which the average audience is measured by Nielsen. On Sundays, the prime-time hours are 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Rating

A percentage measure of total households or population owning TVs who are tuned to a particular program or station at a specific time (e.g., a six rating for women 18-49 means 6 percent of all women 18-49 in the defined geographic area were viewing that station or program), according to the Television Advertising Bureau.

The Television Advertising Bureau defines share as the percent of households (household share) or persons (P2+ share) using television who are tuned to a specific program, network or station at a specific time.

Viewership

Collectively, the viewers of a television program.

Staffing Changes

These are not all of the staff changes at the networks, but compiled to the best of our abilities.

ABC News

Behind the Scenes:

Ben Sherwood, who was named news president in December 2010, hired three for his executive team in April 2011.
Barbara Fedida as senior vice president of talent and business took over for Amy Entelis, who left ABC for a job at a consulting firm. Fedida was most recently at CBS News, but worked at ABC News till 2006.
Susan Mercandetti also returned to ABC as vice president for business development and partnerships, leaving Random House.
Joe Ruffolo became the senior vice president of ABC News digital in May 2011, replacing Paul Slavin who had been at ABC for 33 years. Ruffolo was previously the vice president of AOL.com.
Brian Kennedy was hired back to ABC News in June 2011 as executive director for newsgathering operations. He had last been at ABC from 1994-2006. His most recent position was director of digital news gathering at CBS News.
James Goldston took over as senior executive producer of GMA in February 2011.
Jon Banner, previously the executive producer of World News, moved to a special projects position at the news division in September 2011, overseeing more projects. Michael Corn was named the new executive producer. Corn previously was a senior producer for the show.
Jim Murphy, the top producer of Good Morning America left ABC to take charge of Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show, Anderson.
Dan Arnall, the senior producer for domestic news at World News with Diane Sawyer, was named executive producer of news for Bloomberg TV in January 2012.
Bob Wheelock, who led ABC News’ special events unit left the company in February 2012 to become the executive producer for the Americas at Al Jazeera English.

On Air:

Katie Couric signed a multiyear contract in June 2011 to join the ABC News division as a special correspondent and to host a daytime talk show starting in September 2012. Most recently she anchored the CBS Evening News and reported for that network’s 60 Minutes.
Juju Chang left Good Morning America in March 2011 to join Nightline as a correspondent and a fill-in anchor, but continues to contribute to GMA, 20/20 and World News.
Josh Elliott, a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN (also owned by Disney), joined GMA as its newsreader in March 2011, taking over for Chang.
Lara Spencer became the lifestyle anchor for GMA in spring 2011. She previously was the host of entertainment news magazine The Insider.
Cindy Galli joined ABC News’ investigative team in October 2011. Previously she was a producer at Inside Edition.
Christiane Amanpour left This Week in December 2011 after a little over a year, to return to CNN. She will continue to report for ABC News. George Stephanopoulos, who had hosted This Week before Amanpour, returned to his hosting duties January 8, 2012. He continues to co-host GMA as well.
Jim Sciutto, the network’s senior foreign correspondent, left ABC to become the chief of staff and senior policy advisor to the American ambassador to China in December 2011.
Sciutto’s wife, Gloria Riviera , moved from London to Beijing in January 2012, keeping her position as ABC News correspondent.
Ron Brownstein joined the ABC News political team in July 2011. He was previously the National Journal’s editorial director, but had also contributed to ABC News election night coverage in 2010.
Mark Greenblatt was hired as a New York-based correspondent in January 2012. Previously he was an investigative reporter at CBS’ Houston affiliate.
Reena Ninan was hired to join the Washington, D.C. bureau of ABC News. She previously covered the Middle East for Fox News.
Kelly Cobiella joined ABC’s London bureau as a correspondent in November 2011.
Jim Avila who had been based in New York, moved to Washington, D.C. to become senior national correspondent overseeing a new investigative unit.
Ginger Zee became the weekend meteorologist for GMA in November 2011.
Muhammad Lila was hired in January 2012 as a digital correspondent for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the region, based in Islamabad. He previously was an anchor and reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Joanna Stern joined ABC in February 2012 to lead technology coverage. She had been the technology editor for The Verge, a technology-focused website.
Kirit Radia was named digital correspondent in Moscow in January 2012. He previously was a producer at the White House and State Department.

CBS News

Behind the Scenes:

For the fifth time in less than four years, The Early Show got a new executive producer. David Friedman was ousted in May 2011. He came to CBS from NBC, and replaced every member of the weekday anchor team in winter 2010, which resulted in only minimal ratings changes.
Jeff Fager took over the news division in February 2011, and then made lots of staffing changes.
Chris Licht left MSNBC to become the vice president for programming at CBS News. Licht had been the creator and executive producer for MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Patricia Shevlin was named the executive producer of CBS Evening News in June, when Scott Pelley took over for Katie Couric, succeeding Rick Kaplan, who had been the producer for four years.
Tom Mazzarellli was named the senior broadcast producer for CBS This Morning, and seven others were named senior producers (Sharon Hoffman, Ryan Kadro, Bob Meyer, Eva Nordstrom, Mosheh Oinounou, Kevin Rochford and Rachel Weintraub Riegel).
Rick Jefferson was named director of production and CBS News VP of programming Chris Licht is executive producer.
Mary Hager was named executive producer of Face the Nation in April 2011. She previously was the senior producer for the program.
Sonya McNair was promoted to senior vice president of communications for CBS News and Kelli Raftery was named vice president of communications for CBS News. Raftery previously held communications positions in CBS News, Sports and Entertainment and will report to McNair who most recently was vice president of CBS News after serving as a consultant to the network. She previously worked for The New Yorker.[30]

On Air:

Scott Pelly, the 60 Minutes correspondent, succeeded the outgoing Katie Couric as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News in Jun 2011. Pelly continued to report for 60 Minutes, in addition to his new position.
Harry Smith left the network after 25 years in July 2011, moving to NBC News for a position with Brian Williams’ news magazine.
Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill were named as co-hosts for the new CBS This Morning. The program started January 9, 2012 and was a complete overhaul of The Early Show. Rose previously was the host of a nightly interview program on PBS and had also served as a correspondent for 60 Minutes II and occasionally for 60 Minutes. King was previously the host of a weekday television interview program on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Hill had been the co-anchor of CBS’ The Early Show since January 2011. Prior to that she was the news anchor of the same broadcast and co-anchor of the Saturday edition of the program.
John Dickerson was named CBS News political director in November. He is in charge of overseeing the editorial strategy of the 2012 campaign. He also writes for Slate, the online magazine.
John Mill joined CBS as senior correspondent, with a special emphasis on This Morning. He had been a local television reporter through the 1970s and 80s and was a deputy police commissioner in New York City in 1994 and 1995, before returning to television at ABC News. In 2003, he returned to law enforcement, and joined the FBI in 2005.
Rebecca Jarvis joined CBS This Morning as business and economics correspondent.
Jeff Glor joined CBS This Morning as special correspondent and was named anchor for the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News.
Andy Rooney left 60 Minutes in October 2011 after his 1097^th original essay for 60 Minutes.
Lee Woodruff joined CBS as a contributor to This Morning in January 2012. She is married to ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff.
Wynton Marsalis, the musician and composer was named cultural correspondent for CBS News in December 2011.
Mo Rocca was named a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning in December 2011. He had been a contributor for the broadcast since 2006 and will continue reporting for Sunday Morning as well as other CBS News broadcasts.
Andrew Cohen was hired as the first-ever legal analyst for 60 Minutes in December 2011. He has been the senior legal analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News.
Norah O’Donnell was named CBS News chief White House correspondent in June 2011. She had been the chief Washington correspondent for MSNBC and a contributing correspondent for NBC’s Today Show.
Debbye Turner Bell, a former Miss America who had been a correspondent for The Early Show for 11 years left the network in February 2012.

NBC News

Behind the Scenes:

Patrick Burkey was named the executive producer of NBC Nightly News in July, taking over for Bob Epstein, who was in the position for two and a half years and was promoted to vice president of specials for the news division.
Dave Pietrycha was named senior vice president and CEO for NBC News in October 2011. Most recently, he was the vice president at CEO for MSNBC.
Vivian Schiller, who stepped down as CEO of NPR, was named chief digital officer of NBC News in June 2011.
Rome Hartman was named executive producer of Rock Center with Brian Williams. He previously was an executive producer at BBC News.
David Corvo, previously the executive producer of Dateline was elevated to senior executive producer to oversee both the new newsmagazine as well as Dateline.
Tom Bettag was hired to be a segment producer for Rock Center with Brian Williams. Bettag has worked as executive producer at CBS News, ABC News and CNN. Most recently he was the senior executive producer of CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley and Reliable Sources. He is also a reader for this chapter.

On the Air:

Ann Curry replaced Meredith Vieira as principal host of the Today Show in June 2011. Curry had been the news anchor on Today since 1997. Vieira opted for a one year contract in 2010, choosing to spend more time with her family. Her last day on the show was on June 8, 2011, but she said she was staying with NBC.
Natalie Morales, who was a co-host of Today, replaced Curry as news anchor and Savannah Guthrie, the White House correspondence and MSNBC anchor, became a 9 a.m. co-host.
Harry Smith joined NBC News in July 2011 as a correspondent on Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Lester Holt was named the new anchor of Dateline NBC in September 2011, replacing Ann Curry, who took over for Meredith Vieira on Today.
Ted Koppel joinined Rock Center with Brian Williams as a special correspondent. Koppel had been the leader of ABC’s Nightline for more than 25 years, making him the longest-serving news anchor. He left ABC News in November 2005 after 42 years.
Natalie Morales was also named correspondent for Rock Center with Brian Williams. Other correspondents include: Harry Smith, Kate Snow, Ted Koppel, Meredith Vieria, Richard Engle, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry.
Kristen Welker became the White House correspondent for NBC, joining Chuck Todd and Mike Viqueira in December 2011. She most recently reported for NBC News, traveling with President Obama and the First Lady.
Jeff Rossen was named national investigative correspondent for the Today Show. He will lead the newly created investigative unit, Rossen Reports for the show. Rossen and his team will also report investigative stories for NBC Nightly News and Dateline. Rossen joined NBC News in 2008 and previously worked at ABC’s New York station, WABC.

PBS News

Jim Lehrer stepped down from the PBS NewsHour on June 6, but continued to appear on the program on many Fridays.
Alison Stewart, the anchor of PBS’ weekly newsmagazine Need to Know departed in September 2011, when the show switches to a half-hour format (it was previously an hour long). The show will also change its format to focus on the 2012 election.
Boisfeuillent “Bo” Jones Jr. joined MacNeil/Lehrer Productions as president and chief executive. MacNeil/Lehrer productions is the producer of PBS NewsHour as well as documentaries and features. Jones previously was an executive for the Washington Post, where he had worked for 32 years. He takes over for Simon Marks who is returning to reporting and production.