Vargas Out, Gibson Takes Over ABC News Show
By Roger Catlin, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
May 24–The big event in network news anchoring this week was supposed to be Katie Couric’s final mornings at the “Today” show before she prepares to anchor the “CBS Evening News” in September.
ABC trumped that, though, by announcing Tuesday that its male-female anchor team of Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff would be the shortest-lived in network history.
Charles Gibson, the popular and avuncular co-host of “Good Morning America,” will become the evening broadcast’s sole anchor effective Monday. He will continue as co-anchor on the morning show through June.
Gibson, 63, often filled in for Peter Jennings on “World News Tonight” after the longtime anchor stepped down in April 2005 with the announcement he had cancer; Jennings died four months later at age 67.
Gibson was originally offered the sole anchor job last year but reportedly turned it down because the offer was only for two years, making way for the younger team -Woodruff and Vargas, each 44 – to take over before the 2008 presidential election.
Though local news is dominated by male-female anchor teams, such pairings have never worked on network TV. Still, the failures of Barbara Walters with Harry Reasoner on ABC (1976-78) and Connie Chung with Dan Rather on CBS (1993-95) lasted longer than the five-month Woodruff-Vargas team, which was fraught with unusual circumstances after it began Jan. 3.
Before the month was out, Woodruff, 44, was seriously injured by a roadside bomb while reporting in Iraq and, though he is recovering, he hasn’t been at work since. Two weeks later, Vargas, 43, announced she was expecting her second child with her husband, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn.
Vargas chose to step down to take a maternity leave and return in the fall to co-anchor “20/20″ and news specials in prime time, the network said.
“My doctors have asked that I cut back my schedule considerably,” Vargas said in a statement. “What works for me and my family is to return in the fall to ’20/20′ as I raise my new baby and young son.”
She said, “In Charlie, this broadcast and news division has a wonderful and respected leader.”
ABC News President David Westin said, “Charlie’s taking over ‘World News Tonight’ will give Bob Woodruff the extended period he needs to recover and return to the air for ABC News.”
No date was given for that, he said, “but it will be on Bob’s timetable, not ours.”
Also of concern to ABC must have been the recent ratings, which slipped to third two weeks ago for the first time in nearly five years. The surging “CBS Evening News” finished second, with 7.39 million viewers to ABC’s 7.31 million.
“NBC Nightly News” with Brian Williams has been a consistent No. 1 among the three network newscasts, averaging 8.4 million viewers nightly.
The CBS move to No. 2 (though short-lived, as ABC moved back into second in last week’s ratings, which were released Tuesday) shows that an aging anchor might not be a negative but rather a plus.
Compared to the ABC team and Williams, who is 47, interim CBS anchor Bob Schieffer, 69, has stood out. Since he was installed in March 2005, Schieffer has steadily reduced the ratings gap with ABC. When he beat ABC, he did something Dan Rather had failed to do in the last four years of his 24-year run.
In Gibson, the network has the kind of experience it was avoiding by adding the relatively youthful team of Vargas and Woodruff, some observers say.
“Gibson is an excellent choice, and having him start three months before Katie Couric is probably a good strategy,” said Bill McLaughlin, a former correspondent for “CBS Evening News” who teaches broadcast journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden. “Gibson is a solid newsman – old-school, nothing frilly or fancy. The contrast with Couric will be stunningly obvious.”
Gibson’s departure from “Good Morning America” in July will leave a gap on that show, which has been competitive with the “Today” show. Diane Sawyer will continue as its co-host.
But the change is yet another in a year of musical chairs for morning and evening news hosts:
Couric’s last day on the “Today” show will be Friday. She will be replaced by Meredith Vieira, who has been a co-host of ABC’s “The View.” Rosie O’Donnell will return to daytime TV to replace Vieira.
And now Gibson, who hosted “Good Morning America” from 1987 to 1998, then returned in 1999, will take over “ABC World News Tonight” Monday and do both shows through June.
His successor on “Good Morning America” has not been named.
Reach Roger Catlin at catlin@courant.com.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
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