{"id":499932,"date":"2026-01-07T22:39:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/499932\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T22:39:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:39:51","slug":"latest-version-of-the-cbs-evening-news-gets-off-to-bumpy-start-with-nods-to-its-past-ncs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/499932\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest version of the ‘CBS Evening News’ gets off to bumpy start with nods to its past – NCS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tWeekly insights on the technology, production and business decisions shaping media and broadcast.<\/strong> Free to access. Independent coverage. Unsubscribe anytime.<\/p>\n

The latest iteration of the \u201cCBS Evening News<\/a>\u201d built on its previously announced<\/a> \u201cclassic\u201d logo update to incorporate additional elements from its history.<\/p>\n

The broadcast, which officially relaunched Monday, Jan. 5, 2025, but had a soft launch of sorts Jan. 3, 2025, due to breaking news out of Venezuela, moved former \u201cCBS Mornings<\/a>\u201d co-anchor Tony Dokoupil<\/a> into the anchor chair.<\/p>\n

CBS opted to reschedule its \u201cLive from America\u201d road trip for Dokoupil\u2019s debut, instead broadcasting the Jan. 5 edition from Studio 47<\/a> at the CBS Broadcast Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead of using the large LED volume installed in the space about a year ago<\/a> for the newscast\u2019s previous iteration with John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, the network opted to flip the cameras around to use the space\u2019s working newsroom as the primary background.<\/p>\n

CBS dug up an old anchor desk that had been used at the network\u2019s Washington, D.C., bureau, complete with a disused CBS News logo set in the classic Didot typeface. The desk includes a somewhat dated wood front, with a similar shade used on the LED ribbon that wraps the newsroom as well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that CBS News, which has seen significant management shifts in recent months after the Paramount-Skydance merger went through, are using a \u201cmove fast and break things\u201d approach to re-craft \u201cEvening.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dokoupil\u2019s move to the anchor desk \u2014 though long rumored \u2014 was not officially announced<\/a> until mid-December 2025, meaning the network also had only a few weeks to revamp the show\u2019s look and sound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not clear what the network might do going forward, especially if things remain fluid as reports suggest, sources have indicated that changes to the design and packaging are likely to come.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s possible the \u201cLive From America\u201d road trip was intended to give staffers time to create new virtual set extensions or more finely tuned graphics; however, Dokoupil noted that the newsroom view was the \u201cnew set\u201d in social media clips.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Theme music<\/p>\n

The broadcast also dipped into its vault and brought back the 1991 theme first used during Dan Rather\u2019s<\/a> tenure as anchor. Created by Patterson, Walz and Fox Music Productions, this version contains the CBS News Trivers-Myers signature but is otherwise significantly different, with the goal of a \u201cbigger-than-life sound.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The network also opted to bring back the headline bed from the same package, which sounds more urgent and has a fast-paced cadence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As previously reported<\/a>, \u201cEvening\u201d also switched to using Didot in its primary logo, though the TT Norms<\/a> CBS logo remained alongside the updated title.<\/p>\n

Graphics<\/p>\n

One area where CBS didn\u2019t dig deeply into the past, however, was the graphics package. It borrows elements from at least two distinct sources \u2014 the show\u2019s previous design and the look used on the CBS News 24\/7 streamer and owned stations.<\/p>\n

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While CBS dropped the gold tones from the elegant design that debuted in January 2025, it did keep the simple gradient look used on top of the headline teases, albeit with tweaks to the layout, typography and logo. Gone is the more modern serif, with Franklin Gothic stepping in as the primary typeface for insert graphics.<\/p>\n

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View on Giphy<\/a><\/p>\n

The brighter shades of blue were largely dropped, with gray and white also used in both the open and throughout the rest of the package.<\/p>\n

Open graphics<\/p>\n

The open itself leans heavily on a mix of beveled shapes, including select parts of the show and the network logo, depicted with concave surfaces facing the viewer.<\/p>\n

Because of the angle of the light and the prominent serifs and varying thickness of strokes in Didot, the effect appears, at first glance, to have been applied inconsistently, though reviewing the design more closely does suggest the effect was correctly applied. This is likely why the various \u201cE\u201ds in the design each have slightly different shadows, due to their relative positions to the scene\u2019s light source.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shadowing appears to be an attempt to incorporate letters, which are often rendered as flat surfaces, while also incorporating the package\u2019s circular motif, ultimately tracing its roots back to many of the network\u2019s other graphics.<\/p>\n

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The open also contains imagery of Dokoupil set amid letters and circular elements, which provide a closer view of the concave 3D effect.<\/p>\n

Lower thirds and inserts<\/p>\n

The broadcast\u2019s lower third insert banners, meanwhile, follow a similar layout and look as what\u2019s used on the CBS News 24\/7 streamer and on the owned stations, including the practice of showcasing the show logo in a wide rectangular box in the lower left of the screen, an approach that was used on \u201cEvening\u201d<\/a> from 2022 to early 2025.<\/p>\n

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One difference, however, is that the space provided for headlines and identifiers is offset from the blue box housing the show logo, creating a narrow strip of the lighter rectangle below the bug.<\/p>\n

Most previous interactions kept the bug and banners aligned, except for a flag tier that could be added above the logo box.<\/p>\n

There is also a solid-color, shadow-like effect behind each of the two boxes in the L3, a choice that feels rushed and has little visual similarity to the dithered shadows found in the open.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, Franklin Gothic is used for text within the off-white banners for both headlines and identifiers. Simple horizontal sliding animations can be used to transition between a story headline and on-screen names, the latter of which becomes two tiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The text in story banners feels tight, and in some cases the space between letters becomes almost non-existent, creating a legibility issue.<\/p>\n

Combined, the lower third, bug box and animation in the banner also feel less refined than one might expect from a network-level graphics package, but that will likely improve in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Fullscreens\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The broadcast also introduced some fullscreen graphics with Didot headers and Franklin Gothic body text. These feel a bit more like the simple, elegant look that \u201cEvening\u201d just dumped, but here again, feel a bit unrefined.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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For the handful that ran Jan. 5, some designs did not appear to consider that a banner might be inserted over it. There were also some inconsistent spacing issues, including a stock market graphic that used the circular shadow for the key datapoints with the word \u201cDow,\u201d in all caps, seemingly dropped in above and oddly indented.<\/p>\n

Some of these graphics were updated for the later feeds provided to affiliates in the western U.S.<\/p>\n

OTS graphics<\/p>\n

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OTS graphics used a similar template as the previous look, with updates made to the typography, colors and backgrounds, including the addition of a world map in the lower right.<\/p>\n

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The previous graphic\u2019s package OTS is shown here, taken from Saturday, Jan. 3, 2025, when Tony Dokoupil was brought in to anchor due to breaking news. \u201cEvening\u201d did not heavily use boxed OTSs in its previous life, instead preferring to showcase topical graphics behind anchors within the virtual set extensions.<\/p>\n

At several points during the Jan. 5 edition, there were some rather ungraceful and poorly timed camera moves to adjust for the OTS box after jumping from a centered shot for split-screen tosses back to the studio to another story intro.<\/p>\n

Studio 47 and the \u2018Evening News Hub\u2019<\/p>\n

As mentioned, Dokoupil anchored from Studio 47, which had been the longtime home of the broadcast going back to Rather\u2019s days. Since leaving the space in 2001, CBS performed multiple renovations to the space, including one as recently as 2025, to update it into what it dubbed the \u201cCBS News Hub\u201d with a flashcam-style camera position available.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the LED volume was set up opposite the newsroom workspaces and became home to \u201cEvening\u201d until the end of 2025, moving the broadcast back into its longtime space, which also became known as the \u201cEvening News Hub.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the scenery seen behind Dokoupil follows a layout that was first developed for Rather<\/a> in the 1990s.\u00a0This set, designed by Broadcast Design International<\/a>, laid the groundwork for the current layout of the curved header and wraparound mezzanine that remains to this day.<\/p>\n

In addition to feeding a wood pattern to the LED ribbon and the show\u2019s new logo to the curved header in the center of the arc, CBS also leveraged some of the vertical LED arrays set up within the work areas to showcase more brand imagery, which appeared prominently behind in-studio guests on Jan. 5.<\/p>\n

Dokoupil\u2019s one-shot was framed with a Walter Cronkite-era map camera left and a large white board that appeared to be serving as a two-month calendar on the right. Additional background elements included a collection of surfaces in mid-tone woods with an orange-ish cast, along with lighter blues, both of which are similar to those appearing elsewhere on the network and its owned stations.<\/p>\n

An early debut<\/p>\n

Due to the breaking news from Venezuela, Dokoupil ended up debuting as anchor two days early \u2014 anchoring a special Saturday edition of the \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d Jan. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

This edition, however, used the old graphics and open, though the announce was updated to add a reference to it being a \u201cspecial edition\u201d while also adding Dokoupil\u2019s name, which did not appear within the on-screen graphics (former anchors Dickerson and DuBois\u2019 names did not appear on the title graphic during that period).<\/p>\n

Dokoupil anchored the Jan. 3 broadcast from San Francisco using a simplified studio setup with the camera largely locked down and imagery from the old \u201cEvening\u201d VSEs behind him. It was not clear why Dokoupil was in California, though the network\u2019s original planned tour had him anchoring from the city Jan. 9, 2026, though he may have been in town to complete advance work ahead of that broadcast.<\/p>\n

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