New Assignment Dawns for ABC’s Forrest Sawyer

Weary from his predawn wake-ups as co-anchor of morning programs at CBS and then ABC, Forrest Sawyer plans to leave “World News This Morning” later this summer, but will stay at ABC, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

His impending move out of the reveille ratings races was agreed on last July, ABC said, when Sawyer joined the network after nearly two years as co-anchor of the often-revamped, low-rated “CBS Morning News.”

Phyllis George was one of his co-anchors on that troubled program, which finally was canceled. Its talk-entertainment successor, the “Morning Program,” also bombed in the ratings, was axed after 11 months, and replaced by CBS News’ “CBS This Morning” in November, 1987.

When Sawyer signed to co-anchor “World News This Morning” and the “Good Morning America” news segments, he told ABC “he was kind of burned out from doing the morning (programs),” said ABC spokeswoman Maurie Perl.

His deal was that he would co-anchor the network’s morning news broadcasts for a year, then move at the end of July to other assignments at ABC News, Perl said. However, she added, the pregnancy of his morning co-anchor, Paula Zahn, may delay his departure by a month or two.

ABC News officials “are hoping they can work it out that he will stay through the summer while Paula is on maternity leave,” she said.

“They feel he’s got an extremely bright future,” she said. “They are now basically working out what his new role will be” at ABC News once Sawyer leaves the dawn news patrol.

He will be succeeded as morning co-anchor by Mike Schneider, a former anchorman for CBS-owned WCBS-TV here, she said.