Fond farewell
Posted: Friday, December 14, 2007 4:41 PM by Barbara Raab
By Brett Holey, NBC Nightly News director
Tonight we say goodbye to a familiar voice, an era for NBC and a small piece of broadcasting history.
Tonight's broadcast will be the last time you'll hear announcer Howard Reig say the familiar words introducing the broadcast following John Williams' spectacular fanfare. Monday you'll hear a new voice that will be familiar but in a whole new way.
Howard is diminutive in stature but a giant in heart and voice. His career in the television business has spanned the entire history of "the business." When his voice was first heard on NBC Radio, FDR was president, the U.S. population was less than half of what it is today, there were fewer than 7,000 televisions in America and only a handful of commercial stations.
Howard began his career as a high school English teacher, but when he took a summer acting job in 1943 at WGY in Schenectady, he knew that broadcasting was his field. In the 1940s, Howard narrated live Big Band shows on the radio, striking up a friendships with Duke Ellington and others. He has worked as a disc jockey, talk show host, narrator, pitchman and as a news anchor. He appeared on camera and provided the voice for some of the classic commercials of the 1960s and early 1970s.
He’s been the opening announcer for "NBC Nightly News" since the days of Chancellor and Brinkley. By my tally, he has introduced nearly 7,000 Nightly broadcasts.
On the occasion of Howard's official retirement from the company, Tom Brokaw said, "When I hear his voice introducing me in the middle of some big go-to-hell news story, I always feel I have to step up to the plate with a little more flair. Now I know how DiMaggio felt when he was introduced by Mel Allen."
Personally, Howard is generous almost to a fault. He has been known to lavish friends and family with gifts and tokens, never expecting anything in return. A favorite story he told me: years ago he loaned a "bohemian" friend his motorcycle to ride for a weekend. After an extended period of time he finally asked for it back, and recalls not being too upset when he discovered it had been converted into a planter, a sort of object-d’art on his friend’s Greenwich Village terrace.
Howard's son Ken has built a terrific website as a tribute to him. There are more great pictures, a video, and a lot more information about Howard.
Howard will always be part of the Nightly News family. We're very excited about our new "voice of Nightly," but I will miss the old one just the same.
