There was no more symbolic image yesterday in TV coverage of Peter Jennings' death than his empty chair at ABC's "World News Tonight" anchor desk. It marked not only his passing, but served as a reminder that the era of network news dominance is squarely a part of broadcasting history.

Jennings, who died at age 67 Sunday after a brief battle with lung cancer, was the last of the Big Three anchors.

With Brian Williams following Tom Brokaw in an orchestrated line of succession on "NBC Nightly News" but no successor in place at CBS for Dan Rather or at ABC for Jennings, the importance of evening newscasts in American culture continues to decline along with their ratings.

In 1970, the three evening newscasts were watched in 75 percent of homes with their TV sets on at the dinner hour. Currently, the three network evening newscasts draw only 37 percent of households.

Still, network news anchors are fondly remembered in the national consciousness for the steady hand they've provided in times of crises.

"We were not just competitors and colleagues, we were friends," Brokaw said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "It was a competitive brotherhood."

In his book with James M. Lane, "Anchoring America: The Changing Face of Network News," WPGH news manager Jeff Alan described Jennings as a news anchor "celebrated for a cool, intellectual style. He avoids the pitfalls of overt emotion and its evil twin, cynicism, to provide a nightly broadcast that could be retitled 'Worldly News Tonight.' "

"Of the three anchors that are no more, he's the one who probably had by far the most worldly experience," Alan said. "He was the first reporter from a major network to be [in the Middle East] on a regular basis."

Matthew Felling, media director at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based research group Center for Media and Public Affairs, agreed.

"Jennings' stints in foreign bureaus made ABC's 'World News Tonight' exactly that," Felling said. "It was the most internationally focused news program among the network triumvirate."

Felling said Jennings' stint reporting from Beirut served him best in the post-9/11 world "in terms of cultural awareness of who our new enemy had become."

"After Sept. 11, [2001] he had the fullest, most knowledgeable view of what we were looking at in a way that rose above the dust and blood to the big picture," Felling said. "That's what we're looking for from a news anchor. It's different from a reporter. We want news anchors to have the wherewithal to connect some of the dots and focus. There was no one better at that than Jennings."

Jennings also was seen as worldly for the debonair way he carried himself. Born and raised in Canada, he was the only top network anchor likely to draw comparisons to Ian Fleming's fictional British spy 007.

"He was just so strong and stoic," said Steve Tello, vice president and general manager of FSN Pittsburgh, Fox Sports' local cable channel. For eight years, Tello worked alongside Jennings as a senior producer on "World News Tonight" road trips in the 1980s and early 1990s. "He would travel and not get much sleep like the rest of us, but he always looked like James Bond when he went on the air."

Tello called Jennings the hardest working colleague he's encountered in his career, but he also remembered the newsman's generous side. Jennings and Tello's son, Danny, share a birthday -- July 29 -- and most years Jennings would call Danny or send a card. Within the past 10 days, Tello said Jennings called an ABC News colleague who suffered a stroke to wish him a speedy recovery.

WTAE anchor Mike Clark traveled to New York with Sally Wiggin last fall to film promotional spots with Jennings for Channel 4. As Wiggin and Clark were about to leave, Jennings asked if they were having dinner. Wiggin was on her way to the airport to catch a flight back to Pittsburgh, and Clark was en route to Long Island to visit his ailing father in the hospital. Jennings immediately jotted a note on a script for Clark's dad.

Jennings, who became an American citizen in 2003, was in Pittsburgh in October to moderate a panel on the 2004 election for WTAE-TV, which he told executive producer Debbi Casini was "probably the best town meeting I've ever done." He also broadcast "World News Tonight" from Mount Washington.

Wiggin first met Jennings when he came to town for a similar broadcast in 1986. She was impressed by Jennings' knowledge. He had dropped out of high school and never graduated from college, but Wiggin said Jennings knew a lot about her academic background and asked about the professors she'd had in Asian studies in graduate school at the University of Michigan.

"I was impressed also with the total recall he had, the ability to read something and then his mind just grabbed it," she said. "He was an extraordinarily bright man, and it was not superficial."

Jennings was criticized from some quarters for what his detractors considered his anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian sympathies. He also got tagged with the "liberal bias" label, which he addressed in an interview with Wiggin last fall.

"Peter Jennings was someone who wanted to know as much as he could about every facet of an issue, and some people would say that was bias," Wiggin said. "He addressed the issue of bias in network media and he did say those who are attracted to journalism are usually of a more creative bent, not people who go into business or engineering, and it is a more liberal pursuit. But he told me he read different magazines and newspapers across the spectrum of political opinion, and I think he regarded himself as fair."

CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield, who worked with Jennings at ABC News from 1983 to 1997, said the anchor wanted his reporters to know more about any given story than time would allow them to report on the air.

"He wanted to know the correspondents had as wide a breadth of information as possible," Greenfield said. "Even if it didn't get on the air, he wanted what did get on to be buttressed by a solid rock foundation."

To that end, Jennings was famous for asking correspondents what could be perceived as an out-of-left-field question only a short time before they were to go on the air.

"A lot of correspondents thought it was a power trip ... but I think what he thought was if the correspondent had bothered to find out all that information, even if it never made air, that was the kind of correspondent he wanted on his air," Greenfield said.

Years after he had worked at ABC, Jennings saw one of Greenfield's reports on CNN and sent him an e-mail suggesting he should be careful of making distinctions between Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah.

"It was his way of saying, 'Stay on your toes, Greenfield. Don't get sloppy.' I laughed because it was the same mix of one-upping you, but maybe next time you'll be more careful," Greenfield said. "It did my heart good."

Jennings' style struck some viewers as haughty, and Felling acknowledged Jennings could never ascend to the anchor desk in today's more populist, focus group-oriented TV universe.

"You would not find him sauntering through a NASCAR audience, but you still got the feeling that he could speak to those who did," Felling said. "You got the feeling he would attend Manhattan cocktail parties but talk more with the bus boys than the suits."

Even for younger viewers who get their news online or on cable , there was something comforting in knowing the three mainstays were there. For those viewers, the Big Three had always been there. For older viewers, Jennings, Rather and Brokaw had been there long enough -- since the early 1980s -- that it might as well have been forever.

"You feel a personal loss when one of these people aren't with us anymore, because they're in your living room," Alan said. "They're invited guests into your house. People feel like they're part of the family because they're part of your daily routine."

ABC will broadcast "A Tribute to Peter Jennings" tonight at 8 on WTAE.