science

Hugh Downs

Hugh Downs is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hugh Downs rather than just read about it. In short: Hugh Malcolm Downs (February 14, 1921 – July 1, 2020) was an American television presenter, radio personality, author, and music composer. A regular television presence from the mid-1940s until the late 1990s, he had several successful roles on morning, prime-time, and late-night television.

Key takeaways

Hugh Downs belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hugh Downs to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hugh Downs from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hugh Malcolm Downs (February 14, 1921 – July 1, 2020) was an American television presenter, radio personality, author, and music composer. A regular television presence from the mid-1940s until the late 1990s, he had several successful roles on morning, prime-time, and late-night television. For several years, he held the certified Guinness World Record for the most hours on commercial network television before being surpassed by Regis Philbin, who died 24 days after he did. Downs served as announcer and sidekick for Tonight Starring Jack Paar from 1957 to 1962, co-host of the NBC News program Today from 1962 to 1971, host of the Concentration game show from 1958 to 1969, and anchor of the ABC News magazine 20/20 from 1978 to 1999. Downs started his career in radio in 1939 and began in live television in 1945 in Chicago, where he became a regular on several nationally broadcast programs over the next decade. He moved to New York City in 1954, when he was invited to do a program there. Among other shows during his career, he hosted the PBS talk show Over Easy and was the occasional co-host of the syndicated talk show Not for Women Only.

Early life and education Downs was born on February 14, 1921, in Akron, Ohio, to Edith (née Hicks) and Milton Howard Downs, who worked in business. He was educated at Lima Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio; Bluffton College, a Mennonite school in Bluffton, Ohio; and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, during the period 1938–41.

Radio announcer and programmer Downs worked as a radio announcer and program director in 1939 at WLOK in Lima, Ohio, after his first year of college. In 1940, he moved on to WWJ in Detroit. Downs served in the United States Army during World War II in 1943 and then joined the NBC radio network at WMAQ as an announcer in Chicago, where he lived until 1954. He can be heard announcing the ground breaking 1948–1950 radio show Destination Freedom (written by Richard Durham) which told stories of historical and current Black people. While at WMAQ, Downs also acted, including as the "co-pilot", along with famed Chicago children's program personality Ned Locke, on the Uncle Ned's Squadron program in 1951. Programs of "Uncle Ned's Squadron" can be found in the archives of Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, and, at no charge, from radio historian Chuck Schaden's "Speaking Of Radio – Those Were The Days Encore" website. Downs then attended Columbia University in New York City from 1955 to 1956.

Television career

Downs made his first television news broadcast in September 1945 from the still-experimental studio of WBKB-TV (now WBBM-TV) in Chicago, a station then owned by the Balaban and Katz theater subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Downs later recalled that when he went for his first job, he had never seen a television before, and he was unsure whether television would last. Downs became a television regular in 1950, announcing for Hawkins Falls, the first successful television soap opera, which was sponsored by Lever Brothers' Surf detergent. He also announced the Burr Tillstrom children's show Kukla, Fran and Ollie from the NBC studios at Chicago's Merchandise Mart after the network picked up the program from WBKB. In March 1954, Downs moved to New York City to accept a position as announcer for Pat Weaver's The Home Show starring Arlene Francis. That program lasted until August 1957. He was the announcer for Sid Caesar's Caesar's Hour for the 1956–57 season and one of NBC Radio's Monitor "Communicators" from 1955 to 1959. Downs became a bona fide television "personality" as Jack Paar's announcer on The Tonight Show from mid 1957, when he replaced Franklin Pangborn, until Paar's departure in March 1962, and then continued to announce for The Tonight Show until the summer of 1962, when Ed Herlihy took the announcing reins. Herlihy held that post until October 1, 1962, when Johnny Carson took over the show, and brought Ed McMahon on as his announcer. On August 25, 1958, Downs began a more-than-ten-year run concurrently hosting the original version of the game show Concentration. He also hosted NBC's Today Show for nine years from September 1962 to October 1971 and co-hosted the syndicated television program Not for Women Only with Barbara Walters in 1975–76. Downs also appeared as a panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth and played himself in an episode of NBC's sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? Downs earned a postgraduate degree in gerontology from Hunter College while he was hosting Over Easy, a PBS television program about aging that aired from 1977 to 1983. He was probably best known in later years as the Emmy Award-winning co-anchor—again paired with Walters—of the ABC news TV show 20/20, a prime-time news magazine program, from the show's second episode in 1978 until his retirement in 1999. Downs was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in 1984. In that same year, he was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records (now Guinness World Records) as holding the record for the greatest number of hours on network commercial television (15,188 hours), though he lost the record for most hours on all forms of television to Regis Philbin in 2004. A published composer, Downs hosted the PBS showcase for classical music Live from Lincoln Center from 1990 to 1996. Downs made a cameo appearance on Family Guy in addition to other television shows. Downs was seen in infomercials for Bottom Line Publications, including its World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets, as well as one for a personal coach. He appeared in an infomercial for Where There's a Will There's an A in 2003. His subsequent infomercial work aroused some controversy, with many arguing that the products were scams. Downs appeared in regional public-service announcements in Arizona for the state's Motor Vehicles Division and for Hospice of the Valley, a Phoenix-area non-profit organization specializing in hospice care. He also produced some public short-form programs in which he served as host of educational interstitials. On October 13, 2007, Downs became one of the first inductees into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada. Downs was inducted as a Lincoln Laureate in the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and was awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the governor of Illinois in 1967.

Public service and political views

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hugh Downs

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hugh Downs claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hugh Downs before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hugh Downs ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hugh Downs

In research: Hugh Downs appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hugh Downs in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hugh Downs is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1921 births, 2020 deaths, 20th-century American composers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hugh Downs outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hugh Downs in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hugh Downs means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hugh Downs out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hugh Downs in simple terms?

Why does Hugh Downs matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hugh Downs?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hugh Downs.