Downs Is TV's Record Holder

Hugh Downs has probably logged more time on the air than the test pattern, which, if you hadn't noticed, he long outlasted.

After tonight's 20/20, the ABC News magazine Downs has anchored since its second week 21 years ago, this TV veteran will end a half-century run.

Then Downs will be gone and conspicuous in his absence. Without him, TV will surely be a little less calm. For, above all, the constancy of calm has marked his reign no matter what, no matter when, whether as a morning-show host or a late-night sidekick.

One day Downs was a kid and TV was in its infancy, and then, as if in the blink of an eye, he turned 78 last February. In between, the reassuring purr of his voice and his easygoing credibility made him the Downs comforter.

The man The Guinness Book of World Records recognized for more on-air hours than any other TV personality, Downs has been as much a fixture on your TV sets as the on-off button. The Guinness book has rounded his on-air appearances at 10 thousand.

HeÂ's not retiring, mind you. Just moving to the next thing, a Web startup called iNEXTV that will cover the government's executive branch, he says, the way cable's C-SPAN covers Congress.

With its November launch, Downs will provide a weekly commentary for the site, thus helping to break in a new medium, just as he did in 1945 when he switched from radio to television to read headlines for an experimental TV station in Chicago. This, despite initial misgivings that "TV was a gimmick, like 3-D movies, and would just go away.Â"

Andy Rooney finds Downs loveable

He recalled how as a youngster during the Depression he broke into radio in Lima, Ohio. He was paid just $12.50 per week and the program director leveled with him: He was terrible, at least at the beginning. But the gig sure beat the alternative, which for him was installing roofs.

The Museum of Television and Radio mined their archives and produced a highlight film of the broadcaster:

One clip shows Downs interviewing a boyish Jerry Lewis on a 1955 edition of Home, NBC's innovative daytime magazine.

In another from 1958 Downs is seen emceeing Concentration, which for some 2,000 mornings he introduced as "the television game where the ability to concentrate pays off."

And on it goes: Downs riding shotgun as announcer for Jack Paar on his groundbreaking late-night talk show from 1957 through 1962. Downs anchoring Today for nine years in the 1960 and serving as host for public television's Over Easy, a daily public-affairs show for seniors, in the late 1970s.

"I have been in the habit of repotting myself every decade," Downs explained.

And so he has again. He and Ruth, his wife of 55 years, will now relocate to their home near Phoenix, where he will begin logging hours in cyberspace.

Andy Rooney, who began on CBS NewsÂ' 60 Minutes a month after Downs bowed on ABC, rises to offer him a prickly bouquet: "You're more lovable and interesting than I ever saw on 20/20.Â"