ABC moves Gibson to p.m.

Forced to choose between its profitable morning show and flagship evening broadcast, ABC News moved to shore up “World News Tonight” on Tuesday by appointing veteran newsman Charles Gibson to helm the program, which has been buffeted by misfortune in the last year.

After extensive anticipation, ABC News President David Westin announced that Gibson will be leaving his post on “Good Morning America” to take over for co-anchors Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff -- just five months after they began their short-lived tenure as successors to the late Peter Jennings.

The decision triggers another round of musical chairs as Gibson -- who was passed over for the job last fall -- will replace two anchors touted as the next generation of ABC News.

By tapping the 63-year-old broadcaster, known for his sure-handed and genial manner, network officials are seeking to restore stability to the broadcast after it was rocked by two back-to-back blows: Jennings’ death from lung cancer last August and Woodruff’s wounding during a trip to Iraq in January. Less than two weeks later, Vargas announced that she was pregnant with her second child, further unsettling plans for the newscast.

In an interview, Westin called Gibson “an extremely experienced, extremely able news broadcaster” who had “the authority and relationship with the audience that I think that will stand us in good stead.”

For his part, Gibson said he had one simple goal for his tenure: “Just to be steady.”

A frequent substitute anchor on “World News Tonight,” especially when Jennings was ill, Gibson will be taking over at a time of substantial change for network news. Despite a continuing decline in evening news viewership, attention will be sharply focused on the programs this fall, when longtime morning show anchor Katie Couric makes the jump to the “CBS Evening News,” facing off against Gibson and NBC’s Brian Williams, who assumed his post in December 2004. ABC had hoped to take advantage of the shifting lineup by making a strong run in the morning at top-ranked “Today” once Couric left, but that prospect appears more uncertain with Gibson leaving “Good Morning America.”

While shifting him to the evening newscast may solve that program’s dilemma, it removes a pillar from ABC’s profitable morning show, which Gibson has co-anchored for nearly 19 years. During an often tearful staff meeting Tuesday morning, he was cheered with a standing ovation as he emotionally thanked his co-hosts and the crew for their work.

When he leaves in July, Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts -- who was promoted to the morning anchor desk last spring -- will continue hosting the program without a third anchor. Network officials are expected to make some additions to the program over the summer, and weekend morning anchor Bill Weir, WABC anchor Bill Ritter and network correspondent Chris Cuomo will likely play larger roles on the broadcast.

“Good Morning America” is “as high a priority as we have at ABC News and we are committed to making that program fully competitive, whatever it takes,” Westin said.

In a sign of the show’s importance, Westin said he sought to keep the morning team in place as long as possible, despite pressure on the network to announce another plan for “World News Tonight” after Woodruff was wounded.

Questions grew in recent weeks as its audience eroded and the third-ranked “CBS Evening News” pulled past ABC in the weekly ratings race for the first time in five years. (Last week, ABC regained its lead, beating CBS by more than half a million viewers.)

Gibson’s appointment -- which has been widely expected for months -- appears to have been finally precipitated by Vargas, who has been anchoring the newscast largely alone since Woodruff was hurt. The 43-year-old said Tuesday that she has had a difficult pregnancy and that her doctors have asked her to cut back her workload substantially. She will anchor “World News Tonight” for the last time on Friday and continue just her co-anchoring duties at “20/20” until going on maternity leave sometime this summer.

When she returns in the fall, Vargas said she decided she could not do the kind of traveling required of the evening news job.

“When you have a newborn, you have to make decisions that aren’t the best thing for you and career,” she said. “It was excruciatingly hard for me, but I don’t think it’s fair to a new baby to say, ‘Here you go to a baby nurse, I’m off to Iraq.’ I have a definite view how this job should be done and I came to recognize that with this unexpected but happy event, right now, I couldn’t give this job what it required. I hope to be able to at another time.”

Woodruff, meanwhile, is intent on coming back to his post, but he remains in rehabilitation and doctors are not yet sure when he would be able to do so. Network officials said he would likely first return as a correspondent before being able to resume anchoring duties.

“Bob has a role on the program whenever and however he wants when he feels well enough,” Westin said. “He’s been the one, every time we’ve spoken, who has said, ‘Please, David, understand, this is going to take a long time.’ ”

In a statement, Woodruff called Gibson “a mentor and a friend,” adding, “I look forward to contributing to his broadcast as soon as I’m able.”

Tuesday’s announcement was noticeably more muted than the one six months ago, when upbeat news division officials announced that its new anchor team of Woodruff and Vargas was embarking on an ambitious initiative to expand the broadcast with regular dispatches from the road and several West Coast editions.

But within weeks, Woodruff was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb while traveling with the Iraqi military, derailing those plans.

Shortly afterward, Vargas announced that she was pregnant. The circumstances forced ABC News executives to contemplate yet another transition for “World News Tonight” after weathering Jennings’ death from lung cancer last year.

Network officials ultimately decided that Gibson -- a 31-year veteran of ABC who has covered subjects as varied as the White House and the Middle East -- was needed to right the ship. Westin had considered naming him as Jennings’ replacement last year, with Woodruff and Vargas being groomed as his successors, but Gibson wanted to stay on the broadcast through the 2008 election, a year longer than Westin was willing to commit. This time around, Westin asked Gibson to come on for an open-ended period of time, according to people familiar with the terms.

However, wary of unsettling “Good Morning America,” the news president did not want to pull Gibson off the morning show until the end of this season. He officially takes over the evening newscast on Monday, but will continue to anchor “Good Morning America” three days a week through June.

In an interview, Gibson referred to himself wryly as a “creature of circumstance.”

“I love this place,” he added. “To be fronting, in effect, the broadcast that is the end result of the work product of the majority of the news division, is pretty extraordinary.”

In a meeting with “World News Tonight” staff on Tuesday, he said he hoped to help the program get off the roller coaster of the last year and “back to cruising speed.”

The newscast he takes over will have more modest goals than the ones ABC laid out six months ago. While Gibson will anchor an afternoon webcast that began with Woodruff and Vargas, the program will not attempt to deliver a regular West Coast edition and his traveling will be more limited.

Westin said he continues to believe in “the two-anchor format for the right people at the right time” and will seek to try it again “with a new generation.”

“I believed Elizabeth and Bob were the right people at the right time,” he added. “Unfortunately, some insurgents in Iraq had a different idea.”

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Graduates of the early-morning shift

Charles Gibson’s jump from “Good Morning America” to ABC’s “World News Tonight” beginning Monday isn’t an unprecedented move. In fact, some of the leading names among newscasters have made similar changes in their careers.

Tom Brokaw

He went from NBC’s “Today” show to the “NBC Nightly News” in the 1970s.

Katie Couric

She announced in April her decision to leave “Today” at the end of this month. She’ll become the next anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”

Walter Cronkite

He had a stint co-hosting CBS’ “Morning Show” in the early 1950s before taking the anchorman spot on the “CBS Evening News” in 1962.

Bryant Gumbel

He spent 15 years on the “Today” show before joining CBS to host the short-lived prime-time newsmagazine “Public Eye.” He then went back to morning news on CBS’ “Early Show.”

Diane Sawyer

She co-anchored “CBS Morning News” and the “Early Morning News” in the ‘80s before moving on to “60 Minutes” and then co-anchoring ABC’s “PrimeTime Live” with Sam Donaldson in 1989.

Barbara Walters

She left “Today” in the mid-’70s to take a spot at “ABC Evening News” as the first woman evening co-anchor.

Los Angeles Times