The program debuted on June 9, 1980, under its original title
Independent Network News. The newscast is a production of
Tribune Broadcasting's New York City station
WPIX, and was distributed by
Tribune's syndication division as one of the first programs that the company produced for the syndication market. As
INN was produced at WPIX, that station's on-air news staff presided over the broadcast. The nightly broadcast was helmed by a three-anchor team consisting of
Pat Harper,
Bill Jorgensen and Steve Bosh, with
Jerry Girard reporting on sports and Roberto Tirado providing national weather forecasts (Tirado would later be replaced by Bob Harris); WPIX's local reporting staff was also utilized for the program. Saturday and Sunday editions of
INN were introduced in October 1980; these were initially anchored by Ted O'Brien.
INN also used reports from its member stations, the
Associated Press,
United Press International,
Visnews, and later
CNN to supplement its own coverage. WPIX transmitted the national show's live feed via
satellite—initially via
Westar 3—at 9:30 p.m.
Eastern Time each night. (Most stations that carried the program aired
INN 30 minutes to one hour after the initial feed.) In the New York City area, WPIX paired a replay of the national
INN broadcast at 10 p.m., with its own local newscast at 10:30, called the
Action News Metropolitan Report. The newscast carried three minutes of national advertising and three minutes for local ads. As part of a midday expansion of
INN starting in September 1981, WPIX also experimented with a half-hour midday newscast at 12:30 p.m. that was co-anchored by Marvin Scott and Claire Carter; this followed the national broadcast which aired at noon. During the decade, WPIX also offered the business-oriented news program
The Wall Street Journal Report (which continues to air today in syndication and also airs on
CNBC, albeit under the name of
On the Money); and the Sunday newsmaker show ''From the Editor's Desk,
hosted by Richard D. Heffner, to stations carrying INN''. Bill Jorgensen left the program (and WPIX) in 1983. Bosh and Harper continued to anchor together for another year until Bosh departed in October of 1984 to join
KDFW-TV in
Dallas. Brad Holbrook, who joined the operation a year earlier after anchoring at
WNAC-TV/
WNEV-TV in
Boston, became co-anchor with Harper. Also on March 12, 1984, WPIX dropped its
Action News branding for the station's local newscasts and decided to rebrand its 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. newscasts as
INN: The Independent News, which was concurrently adopted as the title of the national program. The midday newscast continued (now under the title of
INN: Midday Edition) until September 1985, when it was replaced by the lighter-toned
Inday News, which focused upon consumer news and human interest stories.
Donna Hanover, who was already anchoring the local 7:30 WPIX newscast, anchored this newscast alongside Brad Holbrook (Marvin Scott, meanwhile, was reassigned to anchor the weekend editions of the national broadcast), which was part of a syndicated block called
Inday, a co-venture of Tribune,
LBS Communications and
Columbia Pictures Television, designed to provide stations with a two-hour block of news and "infotainment";
Inday was cancelled after only one season, ending in September 1986. In January 1985, Tribune signed veteran
CBS News correspondent
Morton Dean to anchor both the national
Independent News broadcast and the late WPIX newscast. Pat Harper would leave WPIX and
INN in the spring of 1985, after being hired as the 6 p.m. co-anchor at New York's
NBC owned-and-operated station,
WNBC-TV; Sheila Stainback, formerly of
WBAL-TV in
Baltimore, was brought in to replace her alongside Dean. Harper's place on the 7:30 local broadcast was given to Donna Hanover, with Holbrook as co-anchor. Beginning on January 12, 1987, the national
INN newscast was renamed
USA Tonight, keeping that name for the remainder of its run although the INN name and logo was still used in graphics. An increased focus was placed on features in the retitled program, and Dean began anchoring the program by himself. A year after the new format was implemented, Dean left Tribune for
ABC News and a returning Brad Holbrook took the anchor position on weeknights. Stainback would eventually return as his co-anchor, with both of them continuing to anchor the local newscast that followed. The weekend editions of
USA Tonight were discontinued after Marvin Scott was reassigned to WPIX in 1989; he and Mary Garofalo were named anchors of WPIX's local newscast, which moved to 10 p.m. as the lead-in for
USA Tonight at 10:30. Holbrook remained as anchor of the national broadcast through all of this, while Stainback initially anchored alongside him before being moved to weekends. By 1990, it was clear that Tribune's nationally syndicated newscast was not much longer for television. Far fewer stations had been airing
USA Tonight as the 1980s advanced, with some choosing to focus on their own news divisions and others choosing to affiliate with either one of the major networks or the fledgling
Fox network. With this in mind, Tribune Broadcasting entered into a collaborative agreement with CNN, which essentially made the then-six station Tribune group news affiliates of the then-
Turner Broadcasting System cable channel. The final
INN newscast aired on June 23, 1990; through its initial deal with CNN, Tribune retained some of the program's staff as Tribune Broadcasting's
Washington, D.C. bureau. On March 13, 2009, Tribune Broadcasting officially closed the Washington bureau as an effect of the
Great Recession and the sale of Tribune to
Sam Zell afflicting the company with a heavy debt burden which required severe company cutbacks. ==Distribution==