Evening Magazine - The Original Concept

The Original Concept

In August 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.