Evening Magazine

The original concept

On August 9, 1976, KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, California owned at the time by Westinghouse (Group W) Broadcasting, debuted a locally-produced magazine program called Evening: The MTWTF Show, changing the name to Evening Magazine within a few years. The award-winning series ran for 14 years and was the first program in the U.S. to introduce the magazine format for television. It was also the first non-primetime series to be shot entirely on videotape. The series dealt with lifestyles, leisure time, pop culture, famous people, fascinating places, consumer tips and information about modern city living.

KPIX's Evening Magazine was first hosted by San Francisco radio personality Jan Yanehiro, journalist Steve Fox and Detroit news anchor and reporter Erik Smith. Yanehiro stayed with the series throughout its original run, while Fox stayed for three years and Smith for only the first 13 weeks. Smith had come from WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan and returned there, becoming the anchor of that station's weekday morning newscast. The original KPIX version would go on to air more than 3,000 episodes.

Richard Hart joined the series after Steve Fox left and stayed until the "final" episode in 1989. Jan Yanehiro was then joined by Mike Jerrick for a rebooted series titled Evening, which was later renamed Evening Magazine. This continuation ran for a little over 200 episodes.

In the late 1980s, Joe Montana and his wife Jennifer served as special guest hosts, hosting segments from around the country, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Disney World.

The original San Francisco version was so popular, Group W decided to export the Evening Magazine format to its other owned-and-operated stations. When Group W decided to expand the format to stations outside of their group, the existence of another locally produced program in Seattle, Washington, already named Evening Magazine, prompted them to create an alternate name for the national roll-out—PM Magazine.

When Evening Magazine ended, all of the tapes were shipped to Pittsburgh and eventually destroyed. What remains can be found in private collections of the hosts, guests, and viewers. The School of Multimedia Communications at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco is currently gathering all surviving video elements of the original Evening Magazine. Still to be discovered is the very first episode.

Evening Magazine in Seattle

The current Evening Magazine that airs in the Seattle area is still produced to this day by NBC affiliate KING-TV. It launched on that station in 1986, with original hosts Brian Tracey and Penny LeGate. The show currently airs at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time, with a replay airing later on sister cable station Northwest Cable News and sister station KONG 6/16. The show focuses on local people, events, places, and human-interest stories. When Evening Magazine / PM Magazine was still on the air nationwide, KING would use some stories from the national feed for their own Evening Magazine.

The show's longtime host, John Curley, emotionally signed off for the last time on April 23, 2009, after hosting nearly 4,000 shows over 14 years. On December 9, 2009, former KING morning news anchor Meeghan Black became the new host of Evening Magazine. Black ended her "Evening" host run in November 2013. Currently, a revolving cast consisting of "Evening" reporters Jim Dever, Michael King, Saint Bryan, and Kim Holcomb host Evening Magazine, instead of a single main host and co-host reporters. Evening's Reporters' Roundtable occurs on Monday evenings, while the reporters exchange hosting duties every Tuesday to Friday.

Evening Magazine in other Group W markets

Local versions of Evening Magazine were produced at the other four Westinghouse-owned stations. At KYW-TV in Philadelphia, the hosts included Ray Murray, Larry Angelo and Teresa Brown. Featured contributors included Susie Pevaroff, Nancy Glass, Mary Ann Grabavoy, Jerry Penacoli, Pat Ciarrocchi, and other stars of KYW-TV's Eyewitness News. It was canceled in May 1992 and it was the last Evening Magazine version to air on a Westinghouse-owned station.

The Pittsburgh version of Evening Magazine aired on KDKA-TV from August 1, 1977, until October 12, 1990. Hosts included Dave Durian, Donna Hanover, Liz Miles, Jon Burnett and Mary Robb Jackson. Contributors to the show included Bob Kmetz and Dennis Miller (in his first broadcast experience, prior to joining Saturday Night Live).

Boston's version of Evening Magazine was produced at WBZ-TV, featuring Robin Young and Marty Sender, later hosts and contributors included Sara Edwards, Barry Nolan, Candace Hacey, and Tom Bergeron. It premiered on April 18, 1977, and ended on December 17, 1990, with a special entitled "An Evening to Remember," featuring a history of the show, augmented with staff and viewer comments.

In Baltimore, WJZ-TV's edition of Evening Magazine was hosted by Jeff Pylant, Donna Hamilton and Steve Aveson. Maria Shriver served as a contributor early in her career.

WPCQ-TV (now WCNC-TV) in Charlotte, owned by Westinghouse from 1980 until 1984, was the only Group W station that did not air its own version of Evening Magazine. WBTV owned the syndicated rights to the program's format and aired it as PM Magazine, as was custom for most non-Group W stations.

KPIX revival

A similar show with the same name aired on KPIX (now owned and operated by CBS, which acquired the Evening Magazine and PM Magazine trademarks as part of the purchase of CBS by Westinghouse in 1995) from 1998 to 2005. This one is well known because it was hosted by the now-popular Discovery Channel personality, Mike Rowe. The Bay Area Evening Magazine aired on weeknights prior to Mike Rowe's move to Dirty Jobs. The show has since been replaced by Eye on the Bay, which has left Rowe's former Evening Magazine co-host, Malou Nubla, on the outs with the TV station. Chuck Barney, the TV critic for the Bay Area "Times" newspapers said in a March 2006 article:

Turns out Nubla was displeased when Channel 5 (KPIX) scrapped Evening Magazine in favor of Eye on the Bay—a move that diminished her onscreen role. Her contract, however, ran through this month, and she insists she intended to be a good team player and honor it. But then a heated exchange with a station exec (that Nubla says was initiated by the "irate" exec) quickly torpedoed those plans, and she was out of there.