Life With a Changing ‘World’ : Television: Aaron Brown departs ABC’s ‘World News Now’ on Friday. He is the most visible remaining vestige of original team.

Like a breath of fresh air, the ABC series “World News Now” blew into the wee hours of network television 18 months ago with a witty, innovative style that attracted an audience of admiring insomniacs.

Cultivating an intimate, middle-of-the-night attitude that worked even in the glitzy ABC News studio in New York, and blessed with rare chemistry in the unknown anchor team of Aaron Brown and Lisa McRee, executive producer David Bohrman offered a mix of long and short stories, droll sports and weather reports and features that included the hot stuff in the tabloid press.

While the other networks were also introducing overnight news shows--CBS launched “Up to the Minute” and NBC had “Nightside”--they looked tentative and mundane compared to “World News Now,” which hit the ground running and was clearly the class of the field.

On a memorable night shortly after its premiere, a writer for the series was given the go-ahead to just get up and talk about his views of why the TV networks, including ABC, were hypocritical in their policies of avoiding condom ads. Time and again, we got the temperatures of Cicely, Alaska--the fictional setting of “Northern Exposure”--in the weather report. There was real in-depth news that might include extended excerpts from “Nightline” or “David Brinkley’s Journal.”

It was an intoxicating elixir, a kind of cool, off-the-wall, video-age Camelot from a band of knowledgeable folks clearly fed up with the status quo in network television news and trying to break the mold.

But now, suddenly, there are high winds in paradise. The principals who gave the series its on-screen look are either gone or going. McRee departed for other duties at ABC in January; Bohrman lately left for NBC, where he heads up special events and is the No. 2 executive on Tom Brokaw’s nightly newscast.

And on Friday, Brown, 44, the most visible remaining vestige of “World News Now,” will also leave the program for reassignment at ABC.

For some viewers who relished the glorious first year, the party’s over, at least temporarily. ABC, of course, will continue the series and try to reclaim the early magic with new names and faces. The first tryout replacement for Brown, scheduled for a July 5 start, is Brian Rooney, son of Andy Rooney.

Why the exodus from “World News Now”? One reason is that networks see overnight TV news as a career stepping-stone--a showcase from which they can promote and build up talent with promise both on-camera and behind the scenes.

In addition, some talent lucky enough to land other jobs in a recession may simply want to get out of a weird and long night shift that lasts from about 10 p.m. to mid-morning the next day, Eastern time, because of updates for the West Coast.

Bohrman and Brown earlier this year were given added duties by ABC when, during a cutback of the network’s news staff, they were also assigned to “World News This Morning,” which follows “World News Now.”

Reached at NBC in New York, Bohrman, whose eye-catching work at “World News Now” earned attention, says that doing the series was a “perfect job” but “grueling.” Agrees Brown: “I’d like to go back to putting my daughter to bed as opposed to the other way around.”

Like viewers, Bohrman saw that certain something in the pairing of Brown and McRee, and it’s a bit of a surprise that the two ideally matched anchors were not exactly close, according to the producer: “Their personalities off-camera didn’t mesh, but when they were on there was real chemistry. Together they were great. It was a funny relationship--they weren’t best friends.”

A spokeswoman for ABC News says it was “Aaron’s choice” to leave “World News Now” and that he’ll “be doing some fill-in anchoring and be reassigned.” Brown says he expects to put in about eight days in July anchoring the weekend news in Washington and filling in on “Good Morning America” as co-host and news correspondent.

According to Brown, “When we signed on (for “World News Now”),” ABC’s idea “was that you’d do the show for a couple of years” and then be moved along by the network. Over at CBS’ “Up to the Minute,” executive producer Tom Bradford confirms, “Everybody realizes when you’re doing the overnight shift, you think of moving yourself within a couple of years. This is a way-station in most careers.”

Bradford says he has already lost one of his original co-anchors, Russ Mitchell, to “Eye to Eye With Connie Chung,” and he expects his other top name, Monica Gayle, “will be reassigned in the not-too-distant future.”

McRee left “World News Now” to be a correspondent for the fledgling ABC newsmagazine “Day One,” but a network spokeswoman says she departed the series after doing one piece, although she is still employed by the company. Replacing her as the permanent “World News Now” co-anchor is Thalia Assuras, whose recent pairing with Brown has little of the magic of his teaming with McRee--whether they got along or not.

When the new-look “World News Now” arrives on July 5, the anchor team will be Rooney and Assuras. The Rooneys, by the way, are doing quite well these days at ABC. Brian Rooney’s sister, Emily, is the new executive producer of Peter Jennings’ “World News Tonight.”

Brown, meanwhile, knows he’s been part of something special on “World News Now” with Bohrman, McRee and a clearly stylish staff: “The show is approaching a sort of magic point where the advertisers start to take it seriously. If it began at midnight and you were out of there by 2:30 or something, I’d have done it forever. It’s everything I wanted to do. That kind of freedom, with no net at all, is still the great professional joy.”

And would he work together again with McRee?

“Under the right circumstances, sure.”