On June 7, 1976, NBC brought Brinkley back to the anchor desk and tried the dual-anchor approach once again. Chancellor became the sole anchor of the program on August 9, 1971, with Brinkley providing a three-minute commentary segment, "David Brinkley's Journal," from Washington several times a week. With network executives perceiving the instability of this arrangement as a factor in Nightly News losing audience share to the CBS Evening News, NBC discontinued the rotation arrangement, and McGee eventually took over for Hugh Downs as host of Today. Its current theme music, " The Mission" (which debuted in 1985) was composed by John Williams.īrinkley provided commentary several times per week in the 1970s. PT to lead into their late afternoon local news blocks. Eastern Time seven days a week the "Western Edition" of the program occasionally features breaking news and/or updated information on news stories covered during the original telecast for Pacific Time Zone viewers, and some stations in that time zone carry it live at 3:30 p.m. The program is broadcast live over most NBC stations from 6:30 p.m. Previous anchors have included John Chancellor, David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams. Since 2015, the broadcast has been anchored by Lester Holt on weeknights, José Díaz-Balart on Saturday and Kate Snow on Sunday. Select Los Angeles–based editions broadcast from The Brokaw News Center in Universal City, California, or when broadcasting from Washington, D.C., either from the NBC News bureau based at WRC-TV in the Tenleytown neighborhood, or NBC's secondary studio overlooking Capitol Hill. NBC Nightly News is produced from Studio 1A at NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. First aired on August 3, 1970, the program is currently the second most watched network newscast in the United States, behind ABC's World News Tonight. NBC Nightly News (titled as NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt for its weeknight broadcasts since June 22, 2015) is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News, the news division of the NBC television network in the United States. NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (2015–present).