Bill Beutel

William Charles Beutel ( ¹² de diciembre de 1930 - 18 de marzo de 2006) fue un reportero, periodista y presentador de televisión estadounidense. Fue conocido principalmente por su trayectoria de más de cuatro décadas en la American Broadcasting Company , donde presentó el noticiero Eyewitness News para WABC-TV en la ciudad de Nueva York. También fue locutor de noticias de la cadena de radio ABC antes de que ABC Radio se dividiera en cuatro cadenas en enero de 1968. Tras la división, trabajó como reportero en la American Contemporary Network y ocasionalmente sustituyó a Paul Harvey , mientras que su compañero de Eyewitness News, Roger Grimsby, presentaba un noticiero diario vespertino en la American Entertainment Network.

Después de un período en el Ejército , Beutel se graduó de Dartmouth College y luego estudió derecho en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Michigan , aunque la abandonó sin obtener su título. Mientras estudiaba derecho, Beutel le escribió una carta a Edward R. Murrow diciendo: "Tenía muchas ganas de ser periodista de radio". Beutel recibió una carta de respuesta aconsejándole que fuera a la Escuela de Periodismo de la Universidad de Columbia . ^{[ 1 ]} Su primer trabajo en la radiodifusión fue para WGAR en Cleveland , luego se unió a WEWS-TV como editor de noticias y presentador en julio de 1959. ^{[ 2 ]} Beutel se mudó a la ciudad de Nueva York en enero de 1960 como locutor de noticias para WCBS , la emisora ​​principal de CBS Radio . ^{[ 3 ]}

Beutel se unió a ABC en octubre de 1962 como reportero de ABC News y presentador de WABC-TV , la emisora ​​insignia de la cadena en Nueva York . WABC-TV aprovechó el éxito de audiencia de tres años del noticiero Report to New York, presentado por Scott Vincent , y amplió el formato a un noticiero de una hora a las 6:00  p. m. llamado The Big News . Esta expansión no estuvo exenta de riesgos, y el nuevo formato tuvo dificultades con la audiencia. Entre los cientos de personajes famosos que fueron entrevistados por Beutel se encontraba el líder nacionalista negro y musulmán afroamericano Malcolm X. 2 ^Beutel dejó sus funciones en WABC durante dos años en abril de 1968 para unirse a ABC News a tiempo completo como jefe de su oficina en Londres.

In 1970, he got a call from Al Primo, who had taken over as news director at WABC after Beutel left. Primo had brought the Eyewitness News format, in which the reporters directly presented their stories, along with him from KYW-TV in Philadelphia. He wanted Beutel to return to New York as co-anchor alongside Roger Grimsby, whom Primo hired away from KGO-TV to serve as WABC-TV's main anchor. Primo remembered Beutel's solo anchor run in the early 1960s. Since Grimsby had already established a powerful presence after just two years in New York, Primo wanted a co-anchor "who could be his own man." Beutel assured Primo he could be.

Beutel rejoined WABC-TV in September 1970 as Grimsby's co-anchor on Eyewitness News. The two worked together for 16 years, most of which was spent going back and forth with WCBS-TV for first place in the New York ratings. In January 1975, Beutel was reassigned by ABC News and became the co-host, along with Stephanie Edwards, of a new morning show called AM America. This show, ABC's first attempt at a morning news program to compete with NBC's Today and CBS's combination of network news and Captain Kangaroo, lasted ten months on the air.

AM America was replaced on November 3, 1975 by Good Morning America, originally anchored by David Hartman and Nancy Dussault. Beutel returned to WABC-TV and Eyewitness News, though he maintained a presence on the network as the anchor of its 15-minute late newscasts on Saturday and Sunday nights through the late 1970s.

The reformed Grimsby-Beutel team kept Eyewitness News on top of the ratings through the middle 1980s, when it briefly fell to last place. Though the ratings drop was mostly associated with ABC-TV's poor primetime performance during that time, it led to Grimsby's firing in 1986. Within a year, WABC-TV had shot back to first place and has been the ratings leader in New York ever since. After Grimsby's firing, Beutel was joined at 6:00 p.m. by Kaity Tong and John Johnson in a rotating anchor arrangement and was permanently joined by Johnson beginning in 1988.

In 1990 Beutel began a long stint anchoring the 6 p.m. news alone, which ended when his 11 p.m. co-anchor Diana Williams joined him in 1999. He would close each broadcast with a brief commentary on the issues covered that day.

Beutel returned to the 11 p.m. Eyewitness News in 1989 after Ernie Anastos left to join WCBS and was originally paired with then-longtime co-anchor Kaity Tong. After Tong left WABC in 1991 Beutel anchored with Susan Roesgen for one year, but the pairing was unsuccessful and in 1992 Roesgen was replaced by Diana Williams.

Beutel left the 11:00 p.m. newscast in 1999 and was replaced by ABC News correspondent Bill Ritter. In 2001 Ritter also replaced Beutel as the 6 p.m. anchor, and Beutel spent the final two years of his career serving as a senior correspondent and occasional commentator; he would also continue to comment on the issues at the close of the 6 p.m. newscast, which became its own segment titled "Final Thought".

Beutel retired from television in February 2003, having served as an anchor at WABC-TV for a total of 37 years—giving him the longest run in New York television history, until he was surpassed by Rafael Pineda, who has been anchor at Spanish-language station WXTV since 1972. Beutel remained the longest-serving anchor at an English-language station in New York City until April 2011, when he was surpassed by WNBC's Chuck Scarborough. His trademark sign-off was "Good luck, be well".

Beutel was married four times. His first marriage was to Gail Wilder, which lasted twenty years and gave Beutel his four children, son Peter and daughters Robin, Colby, and Heather. In 1975, he married actress Lynn Deerfield (1950-2011),^[4] twenty years his junior, but the marriage was brief. In 1977, Beutel's third marriage, lasted four months. In 1980, Beutel married Adair Atwell, a former tobacco industry lobbyist.

Following his retirement, Beutel moved to North Carolina with his wife. A short while later, he was found to have a degenerative brain condition that was eventually diagnosed as Lewy body dementia. The condition progressed and he died on March 19, 2006, at the age of 75.

Beutel was survived by his wife Adair, as well as his former wives, and his four children from his first marriage.^[5] His son Peter, a businessman and energy sector analyst, died of a heart attack in March 2012.^[6]

• New Yorkers in journalism

• ^1 Ritter, Bill (19 de marzo de 2006). "Recordando a Bill Beutel" . WABC-TV. Archivado del original el 21 de marzo de 2006. Recuperado el 19 de marzo de 2006 .Nota: Cuando Beutel fue contratado en WABC-TV, al director de noticias no le gustó cómo sonaba su apellido, / ˈ b juː t əl / . Le pidió que cambiara la pronunciación a / b juː ˈ t ɛ l / .
• ^2 Haley, Alex (1965). La autobiografía de Malcolm X. Nueva York: Grove. págs. 414–415 . ISBN  0-345-37671-4.

• Bill Beutel en IMDb
• La página "Time Tunnel" de ABC News contiene fragmentos de numerosos noticieros en los que apareció Beutel.