ABC News is expected to announce Wednesday that Good Morning America co-hosts Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson will fill in on World News Tonight with Elizabeth Vargas as Bob Woodruff recovers from injuries suffered in a bombing in Iraq.
Sources said Sawyer and Gibson would figure into the initial plans for World News Tonight, which ABC News recently remade as a dynamic and extended commitment to a daily webcast and live-to-the-West-Coast broadcasts. Despite Woodruff's injuries that will keep off the broadcast for an untold number of months, ABC News has repeatedly said since Sunday that it remained committed to the multi-anchor format.
But most industry sources agreed all the commitments would be too much for one person; ABC News president David Westin said as much in early December when he announced Vargas and Woodruff as co-anchors. So while Vargas will be the primary anchor, Gibson and Sawyer will also appear on the programs in a still-to-be-determined schedule.
While Gibson had originally filled in with Vargas for Peter Jennings when Jennings announced in early April that he would undergo treatment for lung cancer, he already has a full-time job as co-host with Sawyer of Good Morning America. Gibson did both for months but eventually in September returned to the breakfastcast, ceding World News Tonight anchoring duties to Vargas and Woodruff.
Gibson also was in the running for the full-time anchoring job and had almost been granted it, but negotiations fell apart on the length of time the 62-year-old Gibson would remain in the chair. ABC News wanted a transition that would allow it to put in Vargas and Woodruff.
Now Gibson is being asked to go back to the chair in a move that one executive said was amazing given what had happened between him and ABC.
"Charlie has got to be the ultimate good company man," the source said.
In the first road test of the anchoring arrangement, during Tuesday night's State of the Union special report, Gibson and Sawyer participated. Gibson opened the broadcast in the moments before President Bush spoke, from his vantage point on Capitol Hill (and where he reported from for Good Morning America that morning). Vargas, from a studio near the White House, also was a big part of the broadcast.
Yet Sawyer, who was anchoring from New York, didn't appear for her segment until after the president spoke and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine finished the Democrats' response. She spoke to two ABC News contributors about the president's health care plans and shared time with correspondent Jake Tapper, who was keeping track of the citizens' response and the blogosphere's reaction to the speech.
As of Wednesday morning, it seemed that Sawyer's and Gibson's time on World News Tonight could be limited to a month or so. There's a question of workload, which would require either or both of them to work early in the morning for Good Morning America and then late for World News Tonight with the 6:30 p.m. ET newscast and three hours later for the West Coast feeds.
"ABC's doing it in a way that works for both shows and doesn't overwork people who are already doing a lot," said one executive Wednesday.
It also comes at an interesting time for Good Morning America, which has closed the gap with Today over the last year with Sawyer and Gibson (who were also supposed to be there only temporarily). That momentum hasn't carried Good Morning America to further gains this season, as Today has created a comfortable lead in the morning news again.
That could change again later this year, if Today co-host Katie Couric leaves for CBS as has been rumored. That, some in the industry say, could create another opportunity for Good Morning America to catch up to and perhaps overtake Today. That could perhaps be in peril if either Gibson or Sawyer weren't fully engaged in the morning show.
An ABC source discounted that, saying that Good Morning America had three co-hosts (Robin Roberts is the third) and that two of them would be working on Good Morning America while either Sawyer or Gibson would be helping with World News Tonight.
"They still want to beat the Today show, so who is going to do the late [West Coast] feed and who is going to go on the road [for World News Tonight] if they want Charlie and Diane to be there in the morning," said one executive.
ABC is also likely to say that Gibson and Sawyer wouldn't be the only ones who would step in to help out on World News Tonight until Woodruff returns.
I think ABC has the best reporters on network television.
Think ABC is running out of talent?
That sucks for Woodruff. I like Sawyer & Gibson though. They can be pretty funny in the morning.