ABC News President David Westin Stepping Down

[stationless listener]

Straight from the house organ itself: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11571186

Speculations on who would replace him?

 

[Bengalsfan]

Mickey Mouse?

 

[The Voice of Reason]

If Westin is the genius who suggested Diane Sawyer anchor the evening news, then he should have been fired.

 

[searadiofreak]

With other threads on this site, for example, "the implosion of CBS news", and the criticism of MSNBC, it is somewhat ironic that the ABC head is the one who is stepping down. Too much down-sizing seems to be the main motivation, either with a voluntary or forced resignation.

Here is the interesting part of all this. The death of network evening news has been predicted since I was in High School. That was the late 70's, folks. Somehow it has survived. However, I sense this death is probably closer than ever in my lifetime. Let's see how it plays out. Predicting TV listings in the fall of 2012, I would say right now it's about a 40-60 chance these network shows will be on the sked.

 

[TheBigA]

With other threads on this site, for example, "the implosion of CBS news", and the criticism of MSNBC, it is somewhat ironic that the ABC head is the one who is stepping down.

Funny...I thought the exact same thing, and posted as much in the CBS thread. Clearly it's not just one news organization that is facing challenges.

Here's a pretty good article on the ABC story from the LA Times:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/09/the-next-president-of-abc-news-will-face-big-challenges.html

The downsizing happens when the revenues slow down. So if you want to prevent downsizing, find ways to increase revenues. The hard part is doing that while keeping the integrity of news intact. You don't want a TV anchor drinking coffee from a cup with "Folgers" on it. Then again, John Cameron Swayze did his Camel News Caravan 60 years ago smoking cigarettes on a desk with a big ash tray with the Camel logo on it. And that was before we all got greedy.

As I said in the CBS thread, the evening news will continue as long as affiliates want it. If there was a way to monetize national news reports within local newscasts, by running network spots in local time, they'd save a lot of money by eliminating the anchor desk. Then the local folks could run 3-4 hours of local news without interruption. That may be a solution. This isn't to say that local news is the panacea it used to be. It just moves the problem someplace else.