A fuzzy picture

FIRST IT was Tom Brokaw. Last December, NBC's top-rated anchor signed off for the last time. Then Dan Rather followed, stepping down last month after 24 years of anchoring the ''CBS Evening News." Last week Ted Koppel announced he is leaving ''Nightline," the program he embodied for more than two decades. And now comes the saddening news that ''World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings has lung cancer.

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American broadcast journalism is undergoing a remarkable transformation. The familiar faces that personified network news for decades are disappearing or are already gone. Television news has never faced such an abrupt period of transition.

The history of network news is one of relative stability. The television networks did not aggressively pursue journalism in the medium's infancy. News programs aired only when purchased by sponsors; shows like the ''Camel News Caravan" packaged stale newsreel footage to pad out 15 minutes. It was not until 1956, when NBC paired rugged Chet Huntley with erudite David Brinkley, that corporate executives realized the earnings potential of a daily news broadcast. To compete with NBC's top-rated ''Huntley-Brinkley Report" CBS announced in 1963 that Walter Cronkite's evening news would expand to 30 minutes. NBC followed suit, and that November, when President Kennedy's assassination riveted Americans to their televisions, TV news came of age.

Huntley, Brinkley, and Cronkite became familiar figures in the American living room (ABC did not begin its half-hour news program until 1967). Broadcast news audiences proved exceptionally loyal; between 1959 and 1981, the ratings leadership for an entire season changed exactly once, when the ''CBS Evening News" surpassed the ''Huntley-Brinkley Report" in 1967-68, and it would hold the lead until Cronkite's retirement in 1981.

Audiences for both CBS and NBC news were large, loyal, and influential. By the late 1960s the evening news began generating impressive revenues. In ''The Republic of Mass Culture," James Baughman notes that the ''Huntley-Brinkley Report" was NBC's single most profitable program in 1969, earning approximately $30 million.

Profitability and public service combined to ensure a measure of autonomy for the network news shows. This independence evaporated in the mid-1980s when, in a period of a little over one year, all three networks were purchased by large corporations. News divisions once protected by benevolent ownership would now have to be responsive to corporate demands. Editorial decisions started to be influenced by audience metrics. Cost efficiency and public service became equal priorities.

The well-compensated anchors, however, persevered. For the sake of ratings, they began leveraging their own personalities as brand names. Appearing regularly on prime-time newsmagazines and specials, Brokaw, Rather, and Jennings helped dilute the power and prestige they had so assiduously accrued. In the new media environment this was labeled ''synergy," but there was little synergistic about this overexposure. The evening news audience -- once so essential to the networks' political, social, and economic power -- deserted in droves.

Without the clout generated by a large daily audience, it will be impossible for a future broadcaster to achieve the level of credibility and respect earned by their predecessors. The combined viewership for the evening news has fallen by 45 percent since 1980, when the CBS Evening News drew almost 20 million viewers nightly. Today, the three netwoks split a nightly audience of roughly 28 million.

In the world of on-demand, customized information delivery, the political, social, and cultural standing of any single anchor will be greatly diminished. Cronkite's declaration that the Vietnam War was a ''stalemate" changed the course of American history. That era of centralized journalistic authority has passed.

While nobody can predict network journalism's future, it is clear that demographic imperatives will further shape both personnel and editorial decisions. Network news has already been heavily influenced by cable and local competition. Undoubtedly we will see more stories that ''test well" among younger audiences. Perhaps commentary will emerge within ostensibly traditional reporting. We might even detect a bit of cynical humor, a la Jon Stewart, in a gamble to preserve relevance.

Yet there will be moments when we require the traditional anchor. In times of national crisis, we turn to television. When chaos erupts we prefer our news from the mountaintop. We want information delivered quickly, with a reliable amount of accuracy and a minimal amount of speculation. But we also desire something more. ''When there is a crisis in the American family, our roles become . . . almost ministerial in a sense that we are healers," Tom Brokaw told an interviewer following the Sept. 11 attacks. ''We are looked to for information, but also for empathy and reassurance."

One hopes the next generation of anchormen can perform this public service should the need arise.

Michael Socolow is the director of the Brandeis University Journalism Program.