(Left to right) Peter Jennings & George Redpath
WFIL-TV Publicity Handout printed on news stock
late 1966

In 1965, WFIL-TV made the decision to replace veteran news anchor Gunnar Back with a younger newsman, George Redpath. George anchored the Channel 6 news for a couple of years. On Monday, January 9, 1967, ABC-TV expanded the ABC evening news from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. At the same time, WFIL-TV expanded their local news to a half-hour and George was the anchor.

We happen to have a short clip of Redpath on WFIL-TV, Channel 6 in Philadelphia from Friday, April 15th of 1966.

Listen in Real Audio!
Listen in Windows Media!

By the way, Peter Jennings had NOT remained the ABC-TV anchor for all these years. He was given the anchor job in 1965 and anchored for two years. Jennings told the story that his salary for anchoring in the sixties was $39,000 a year. In today's money, however, that would amount to a little over a quarter of a million dollars. Jennings was replaced in 1967 and the program had several anchors. Eventually, "World News Tonight" came along with three anchors which included Peter Jennings based in London. Finally, the decision was made to have one anchor and that was Peter Jennings. He was their sole anchor for 22 years (1983 to 2005). Peter Jennings passed away on August 7, 2005.

From the official archives of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
Photo originally donated by Broadcast Pioneers member Dr. Francis Davis
Audio clip originally donated from the collection of Broadcast Pioneers historian Gerry Wilkinson
© 2010, Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
All Rights Reserved

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com