'The Big News' -- Remember when KCBS-TV was KNXT- Channel 2?

LA Times 

Jerry Dunphy 'The Big News'
KNXT-TV Channel 2 Los Angeles

The L.A. TV show, billed as the first 45-minute newscast in the nation, debuted in 1961. After it expanded to 60 minutes, executives from other cities visited to see how to set up a one-hour newscast.

An apt title for the typical TV newscast of the 1950s might have been: "Inaction News!''

There simply wasn't much of it on the tube back in those pre-Lindsay Lohan days.

In Southern California, for instance, the nightly fare on KNXT-TV (Channel 2) in 1959 consisted of a network newscast from 7:15 to 7:30, and two local newscasts from 7 to 7:15 and 11 to 11:15. Yup, 30 minutes of local news nightly, two-thirds of which was devoted to sports and weather.

TV anchors would sometimes introduce stories by holding up the morning's newspaper headlines.

So there was some astonishment in 1961 when KNXT (now CBS2) introduced "The Big News," billed as the first 45-minute newscast in the nation.

Creator Sam Zelman put together a talented staff, including anchor Jerry Dunphy, a Chicago import with a stentorian baritone; investigative reporter Maury Green; avuncular Ralph Story; witty weatherman Bill Keene; and actor/umpire-turned-sportscaster Gil Stratton.

KNXT set up bureaus in Sacramento and throughout the state as well as in Washington, D.C.

The ratings soared, though the pace was stressful. The staff worked in "a somewhat dingy one-story building abandoned by the Bank of America,"

KNXT expanded "The Big News" to an hour in 1963.  Read more

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