Reuven Frank, 85; NBC Producer Helped Launch ‘Huntley-Brinkley’ Show

Reuven Frank, a pioneering TV news producer and executive whose decision to pair two anchors on one newscast resulted in the groundbreaking 1950s nightly broadcast, “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC, died Sunday. He was 85.

Frank died of complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his New Jersey home, according to NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust.

A funeral is planned for Wednesday.

Throughout his 40-year broadcast career, Frank stressed the importance of strong visuals and storytelling techniques in reporting news stories.

While such an approach might not seem radical today, in the 1950s television still lingered in the shadow of radio, and Frank sketched out a roadmap to exploit the new medium to the fullest.

As he later wrote: “Pictures are the point of television reporting.”

Many of his acclaimed documentaries are still considered TV milestones, especially “The Tunnel,” a 1962 report that depicted the escape of 59 Germans through a passage under the Berlin Wall.

The United States government pressured NBC to delay the broadcast citing Cold War sensitivities. When it finally aired, the program won an Emmy Award and inspired at least two subsequent feature films.

Frank served two tenures as president of NBC News, from 1968 to 1972 and from 1982 to 1984, and mentored such journalists as Tom Brokaw, John Chancellor, Linda Ellerbee and Andrea Mitchell.

Colleagues admired his broad intellect as well as his cranky wit. “I think he would have been a Talmudic scholar had he not gone into journalism,” David Brinkley once said.

But Frank is perhaps best-remembered as the producer of “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” which, starting in 1956, teamed veteran newsman Chet Huntley, who broadcast from New York, with Brinkley , who broadcast from Washington. It was the first TV network newscast to attract a devoted national following.

Frank composed a 16-page memorandum that laid out his expectations for the broadcast, including such details as how reverse-angle shots should look, according to former ABC News executive and journalism professor Richard Wald.

The memo eventually became a virtual guidebook for nightly newscasts everywhere.

“He set the ground rules for almost everything you see on TV news today,” Wald said.

Frank is also credited with the program’s closing lines, which became a national catchphrase: “Good night, David.” “Good night, Chet.”

“It started to catch on, and then people started to make fun of it,” Frank later told reporter Gabe Pressman. “And both [anchors] ... came to me and said, ‘Can’t we do something else?’ And I said, ‘Well, the show’s gotta end. You ... both have to be in it. Find me one that’s shorter and I’ll use it.’ And they didn’t.”

In a statement released Monday, former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brokaw paid homage to the Huntley-Brinkley years: “Those broadcasts became a school for a new generation of journalists coming of age in a new medium, and I am forever grateful for what I learned from him.”

Frank was born in Montreal on Dec. 7, 1920. After earning a bachelor’s degree at City College of New York and a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University, he found work as a reporter at the Newark Evening News in New Jersey.

He joined NBC in 1950 and spent nearly four decades there. In addition to the Huntley-Brinkley program, he developed and produced newsmagazines, including “Weekend,” which during the mid-1970s alternated in a late-night slot with NBC’s then-new “Saturday Night Live,” and “Overnight,” co-hosted by Ellerbee and Lloyd Dobyns.

Survivors include his wife, Bernice, and two sons, Peter Solomon and James Aaron.

When he left the business in 1988, Frank offered a downbeat assessment of the future of TV news. “I don’t think it’s any fun now,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t think there’s anything new to do. It’s still honest work ... but there’s no more adventure.”