On April 5 , 1982 , Tom Brokaw , who had been serving as anchor of '' Today '' since 1976 , joined the program and took over co-anchor duties in New York City , while Roger Mudd became anchor in Washington . Mudd was dropped from the broadcast and Brokaw became the solo anchor of '' Nightly News '' on September 5 , 1983 , the same day that his ABC competitor , Peter Jennings , became sole anchor of '' World News Tonight '' . With Brokaw being the sole anchor , the '' Nightly News '' was now completely based in New York City . Among other news items , he covered the Space Shuttle '' Challenger '' disaster , EDSA Revolution , Loma Prieta earthquake , the fall of the Berlin Wall , and Hurricane Andrew . As anchor , Brokaw conducted the first one-on-one American television interviews with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Vladimir Putin . He was the only network anchor in Berlin when the Berlin Wall fell . Brokaw 's presence slowly attracted viewers , and during the 1990s , '' Nightly News '' battled for the viewership lead with '' World News Tonight '' . He and Katie Couric hosted a prime-time newsmagazine , '' Now with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric '' , that aired from 1993 to 1994 before being folded into the multi-night '' Dateline NBC '' program . By 1997 , '' NBC Nightly News '' had solidified its first place standing in the ratings , a spot it would retain solely for ten years . The once-dominant '' CBS Evening News '' , anchored by Dan Rather , had lost a substantial portion of the audience it held during the Walter Cronkite era and slid to third place ( where it still remains as of 2017 ) in the viewership wars
Loma Prieta earthquake
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
NBC Nightly News