New York — NBC anchor Brian Williams was leaving his third-floor studio at Rockefeller Center after a recent broadcast when he was confronted with yet another reminder of his industry's precarious footing.
This time, it came in the form of a dozen Bard College undergraduates, touring the NBC newsroom for journalism class.
"Anyone grow up in a household where people actually watched the news at 6:30?" asked the anchor, stopping to chat with them before he headed out. The students shuffled their feet. One young woman tentatively raised her hand.
"One?" asked Williams, smiling wryly. "Well, without sounding like a commercial announcement, the broadcast you just saw is the single largest source of news in the United States."
"A lot of people are out there writing early obituaries and saying it's all going to Google," he added. "I don't believe that. I think we have a power that they don't."
You can't blame Williams for sounding a little defensive. Today marks his first anniversary in the anchor chair since inheriting the job from Tom Brokaw, and while the newly installed NBC anchor has earned plaudits and healthy ratings in his first year, he's also had to contend with a growing uncertainty about the future of the evening newscast.
As overall viewership continues to ebb, the industry has been awash in predictions about the demise of the traditional 6:30 p.m. broadcast. The rapid-fire departure of legends like Brokaw, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel only heightened a general sense of unease about the future, especially as ABC and CBS are still in limbo about who will take over their flagship broadcasts.
Still a relative newcomer, the 46-year-old Williams is now the dean of network news and the only permanent anchor of an evening newscast. Despite the upheaval, he remains bullish about the genre.
"This is the closest you can come to really hitting a swath of the American viewing audience," he said. "And when a Katrina happens or, God forbid, a 9/11, people come back to the so-called Big Three over-the-air networks in droves."
But that doesn't mean that he's counting on the stature of the network news to prevail against the tide of new technology. As he's settled into his new role, Williams has worked to straddle the worlds of old media and new media.
"I've not been forced to change because of a competition model," he said. "Tom had Peter and Dan chasing him around the globe, that always kept him sharp. I've been kept sharp this year by innovation, by the need to modernize."
