TVSquad

When Peter Jennings passed away and Bob Woodruff was injured, one of the names that popped up as a replacement on ABC World News was Diane Sawyer. Now, a couple of years later, that's actually coming true.

ABC has announced that Charles Gibson will step down as anchor of the show in January. Sawyer will take over for him. Of course, that means that Sawyer will step down from her hosting gig on Good Morning America. No, I don't think there's any chance that Gibson will switch places with her and go back to GMA, but who the heck knows (ABC is using the word "retires"). Gibson does say that he wants to continue working with ABC News in some way.

So we have two big stories here: two women as network news anchors (Sawyer and Katie Couric at CBS) and the question of who will replace Sawyer in the morning. Or maybe they'll just stick with three hosts/co-hosts (Robin Roberts, Chris Cuomo, and Sam Champion). Who do you think should take over on GMA?

I'm not sure if anyone else in the world is experiencing this, but every time I watch ABC World News with Charles Gibson, something happens that confuses and scares me a little.

During the commercials, the vocal track is completely silent, and all I hear is the music track.

Walter Cronkite is a tougher act to follow than letting Metallica open for William Hung.

But now that the news legend and former most trusted man in America has passed on to that big newsroom in the great beyond, America needs someone else to trust. They need someone they can depend on to get the hard, cold facts about the important stories that truly affect their lives. They need someone to cut through the political haze of misdirection and mediocrity that cloud almost every major news story like a lingering beer fart.

That man is ... Jon Stewart. Don't like it? Blame the rest of the news media for not doing a better job.

Think about this for a moment: who is the person on television that viewers trust the most to get their news from? Someone from the cable news channels? One of the network news anchors?

Time conducted a survey across the country, asking people who the most trusted newscaster is now that Walter Cronkite is gone. Not really sure why Cronkite matters in this context because he hadn't been a newsman in quite some time, but it's interesting to see all of the statistics by state. You probably won't agree with who came in first with 44%.

This isn't just the week for prime time Emmy nominations, we also have the nominations for news.

Here's the list of news and documentary Emmy nominations. There are many categories, including several for the cable news channels, but a few of the big nominations include Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin for Outstanding Interview (really?), NBC Nightly News coverage of Tim Russert's death for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story, 60 Minutes taking three of the four nominations in the Outstanding Feature Story in a News Magazine category (Primetime took the other), and three nominations for The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

[via TV Newser]

I was just over at TV Newser looking at the latest ratings for the cable news outlets. FOX News beats CNN and MSNBC combined all day, Nancy Grace has been beating Keith Olbermann lately, MSNBC has been beating CNN in primetime. On the networks, NBC is still ahead, followed by ABC and CBS. And that got me thinking: what do you watch for news now? I work from home and watch TV all day long, so I watch both CNN and FOX News. At night, I usually watch Katie Couric on CBS.

How about you?

Remember when every single person in the world said that Katie Couric would be gone from The CBS Evening News by the end of 2008? HA!

Not only is Couric not going anywhere, her show is actually doing better, thanks in part to the election coverage. It's still in third place, of course (and I think it will probably stay there for quite some time, if not forever), but her ratings are improving. The first week of this month, Couric's show trailed ABC's World News by 1.5 million viewers. That might seem like a lot, but Couric trailed that show by 2.8 million viewers the same week last year. The same thing happened last week compared to the same week in 2008. Hey, at least it's a move in the right direction.

One of the most recognizable figures in ABC News is saying goodbye to the daily grind. In his time with the network, Sam Donaldson has done it all, investigative reporter, anchor, host, talking head, and always with a distinctive, pugnacious style. After four decades at the job, ABC's Sam Donaldson is retiring.

He will be missed, especially at the network. Anchorman Charles Gibson acknowledged as much when he told the Washington Post that Donaldson's retirement "really is a loss of the bedrock" for ABC. These days, the big three have struggled to maintain their dominance in the news business with cable outlets offering so much blanket coverage compared to the nets. Sam Donaldson has been synonymous with ABC. He can't help but be missed. To this day, I think Ted Koppell is missed as well.

Earlier this year I asked readers which network had "the best political team on television." CNN officially uses the line, but it doesn't mean it's true. Though I do have to say that I find myself watching CNN the most this election season because they truly do seem to go out of their way to be fair and bal...

OK, I won't say that exact phrase, but they do have a good mix of people, from Dems Paul Begala and Donna Brazille to Republicans William Bennett and Alex Castellanos, not to mention analysts like Gloria Borger and John King. It can get pretty unwieldy though, all those pundits spread across various tables. It's like that big World Series of Poker room mixed with a game show set, and if you have HD and can see the scorecards on the sides of the screen, it actually is like a game show.

If you watched the network morning shows this morning, you've seen the shocking sight of the Big Three evening news anchors -- Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and Charlie Gibson -- appearing on each show ... together! Gasp! How can that happen? Don't the networks have contract clauses and armies of lawyers to prevent these things from happening?

Well, I guess the lawyers tend to stay home when a good cause is involved. The anchors went on the news shows this morning to announce a cross-network telethon called Stand Up for Cancer Stand Up To Cancer, which will air on NBC, CBS, and ABC on September 5. The one-hour show will have musical performances and testimonials from all three anchors about the need for furthering cancer research (remember Couric's husband and sister both died from various forms of the disease). Money raised by the telethon will go to a number of organizations and research groups.

Way back in August, I listed my choices for the three worst anchors on television. I said in that post that "later this week" I was going to name the best news anchors on television. Apparently, "later this week" meant seven months later. Sorry about that!

Here are my choices for the six best news anchors currently on television. Feel free to disagree and argue with me in the comments section (as if you need any suggestion from me for that).

"No offense to those over 60, but that's not a demo we want."

That's a quote from Les Moonves at a press conference yesterday, talking about statistics that say the average age for a viewer of the nightly network news programs is 61.

Looks like all of the younger people in the country are getting their news from the web and cable.

So much controversy about Katie Couric taking over The CBS Evening News. And now here it is a year later (she started on September 5, 2006), so I have to ask: how do you think she's doing?

I'll admit I had my doubts and might have even expressed them here, but in reality, I think she's doing fine. She can't do anything about the ratings, and the show was in third place long before Couric took over. As Bill Maher said when he was asked at the time how Couric was going to do, "I think she'll read the teleprompter fine." And she's done a fine job. Sure, there were some odd growing pains, like addressing the audience by saying "Hi everyone," the "Picture of the Week" and "First Person" segments that were dropped, and it looked a while there like they were going to end each episode by showing her legs, but the show has gotten a lot better.

So network news anchors Katie Couric and Brian Williams both signed Stephen Colbert's wrist cast, which is now up for bid at eBay. But why didn't the other network anchor sign it, ABC's Charles Gibson?

That's the question some people are asking this week. Both Couric and Williams played along and signed the cast, which Colbert got from an injury back in June. Colbert has made the cast part of his "character's" storyline. Williams even agreed to wear a wrist bracelet on the NBC Nightly News and lived up to his promise last week.

All this talk about Katie Couric's low ratings, how people don't like her, her New York interview, etc, etc. But did you know that she's actually the highest paid of the three nightly network news anchors?

Couric makes around $15 million a year. Over at NBC, Brian Williams is making around $10 million a year. Charlie...sorry, Charles Gibson? He has the most buzz right now but he actually makes the least, around $8 million a year. He didn't get a raise (nor did he want one) when he made the jump from Good Morning America to ABC World News (though I assume he'll get one when his contract is renewed in two years). He says the money thing is "irrelevent." Well, it would be to me too if I was getting $8 million a year.

So here we go again: yet more ammunition for the "Katie is bad, Charles is good" crowd.

[via TV Newser]