Bob Hite (announcer)

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This article is about the radio and television announcer. For the musician, see Bob Hite.

Bob Hite, Sr. (born February 9, 1914 in Decatur, Indiana; died February 18, 2000 in West Palm Beach, Florida) was an American radio and television announcer, voice-over artist, and news anchor.

Hite began his announcing career in the 1930s at WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan. During his years there, he was among the announcers for such old-time radio shows as The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Challenge of the Yukon.

In 1944, Hite joined the New York announcing staff of CBS. His radio announcing credits for the network included Let's Pretend, Casey, Crime Photographer, and The CBS Radio Workshop. In the early and mid-1950s, he was narrator of several short films for RKO Pictures, including one of Stanley Kubrick's early works, Flying Padre. During the early years of television, Hite was an anchor of five-minute morning news updates for the local CBS flagship station, WCBS-TV; at one point, he was paired with fellow announcer Peter Thomas on those newscasts.

Hite announced the opening bumper for CBS's color programs starting in 1966, replacing fellow staff announcer Hal Simms who had voiced the same bumper the year before. But his most famous television credit was as announcer for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite beginning in 1971, and continuing until his retirement from the network in 1979.

Hite died at a hospice in West Palm Beach, Florida at age 86.

His son, also named Bob Hite, was an anchor at WFLA-TV in Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida from 1977 until his retirement in November 2007.