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Hugh Downs, genial presence on TV news and game shows

NEW YORK — Hugh Downs, the genial, versatile broadcaster who became one of television’s most familiar and welcome faces with more than 15,000 hours on news, game and talk shows, has died at age 99.

Downs died of natural causes at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Wednesday, said his great-niece, Molly Shaheen.

“The Guinness Book of World Records” recognized Downs as having logged more hours in front of the camera than any television personality until Regis Philbin passed him in 2004.

He worked on NBC’s “Today” and “Tonight” shows, the game show “Concentration,” co-hosted the ABC magazine show “20/20” with Barbara Walters and the PBS series “Over Easy” and “Live From Lincoln Center.”

His signature sign-off at the end of “20/20” told viewers: “We’re in touch, so you be in touch.”

“I’ve worked on so many different shows and done so many shows at the same time,” Downs said in a 1986 Associated Press interview. “I once said I’d done everything on radio and television except play-by-play sports. Then I remembered I’d covered a boxing match in Lima, Ohio, in 1939.”

Downs began his broadcasting career at the age of 18 as a $12-a-week announcer on a small Ohio radio station.

When television came along, he at first looked on it as a gimmick, but quickly realized “it was probably a juggernaut, and I’d better be in on it.”

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