Scott Vincent (December 23, 1922 – May 31, 1979)[1] was an American radio and television announcer and news anchor.
Scott Vincent was a staff announcer for nearly 25 years at ABC's flagship owned-and-operated station WABC-TV in New York. He distinguished himself in his first assignments for WABC Radio with a show that outstripped DJ legend Martin Block in ratings. For the very first Eyewitness News pilot news broadcast in 1968, Vincent developed a unique and exciting announcing style for that broadcast that sometimes eclipsed the on-air talent that WABC hired for the program. When, for example, during the mid-1970s, WABC recruited Tom Ellis and Bill Bonds from other stations to co-anchor with Roger Grimsby, Newsday critic Marvin Kitman wrote:
"Neither Bonds nor Ellis is as exciting a voice as the announcer who tells us of things "STILL TO COME: Tex with the Weather...Anna with the Hustle..." That voice should become an anchorman one day."
"That voice," Scott Vincent, was an anchorman for WABC in the early 1960s, but was best known to millions of tri-state listeners for his distinctive and intense signature style at Eyewitness News, and The 4:30 Movie. Vincent hosted The 4:30 Movie off camera, and he voiced promos for this program that ran on WABC day and night for over ten years. Vincent's exciting style constistently captured high ratings for The 4:30 Movie whether the theme for the week was Science Fiction or Romance, and provided a solid lead-in day after day to his other program, Eyewitness News. The signature style Scott Vincent created for Eyewitness News was eventually distributed on tape by management to all of ABC's owned-and-operated stations as the model for Eyewitness News show opens across the country. His voice so saturated and dominated the airwaves of that station during the 1970s that he became known as "The Voice of WABC."
Scott Vincent was a graduate of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1944. In 1946, he earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Princeton University. Vincent died on May 31, 1979 in Bronxville, New York at age 56.
References[]
- Obituary in The New York Times, June 2, 1979.
- Obituary in Variety, June 6, 1979.
- TV Guide (New York-Metropolitan Edition), May 21-27, 1960, p. A-56.