48 Hours (1988)
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Debuting January 19, 1988. CBS, 8/7pm Central
Created by former CBS News president Howard Stringer, this newsmagazine was inspired by CBS News documentary 48 Hours on Crack Street, airing September 1986, a since-highly criticized piece which presented Dan Rather delving into a claimed “crack crisis”, contributing to a moral panic over crack cocaine.
Like that documentary, 48 Hours focused on events occurring within a 48-hour time span; but this format was eventually phased out by the early 1990s, while the title remained. Rather was the primary host of 48 Hours for its first 14 years on the air. The program moved to ‘true crime’ style topics in the 2000s and even started producing NCIS versions of the show, reflecting the popularity of the various NCIS series among the aging viewers of the network.
