A long-running television news program will be anchored by two women for the first time in its history. The New York Times reports that "PBS NewsHour" named an all-female anchor team.

For decades the broadcast was co-anchored by the two men who created the program, Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil.

PBS said Tuesday that Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff will take over the nightly newscast in September. They will also serve as managing editors for the program.

The appointments mark the first time a network broadcast has featured a female co-anchor team, PBS said. It marks an achievement for women on television and journalism, seven years after Katie Couric was tapped as the first woman to anchor an evening news program, the piece notes.

The show originated its co-anchor format in the 1970s, when Lehrer and MacNeil founded the program. The two men co-anchored until 1995, when MacNeil retired. Lehrer continued until 2011, when he too retired. Among the program’s various names over the years it was called "The MacNeil/Lehrer Report" from 1975-1983 and "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" from 1983-1995.

In recent years the show has had rotating anchors, with Ifill and Woodruff part of a rotation that also included Jeffrey Brown, Ray Suarez and Margaret Warner.

Gwen Ifill, left, and Judy Woodruff