What does it take to get Koppel back on Nightline?

[fybush]

I guess it took the London bombings, because he was actually on tonight. I'm trying - and failing - to recall the last time I actually saw Koppel and not Chris Bury or John Donvan or one of the others.

It was refreshing to see Koppel doing a real Nightline and not the strange try-out version that we'd been seeing this week, with multiple stories in a single half-hour. If that's what ABC has in mind for the "new" Nightline, I'm sticking with Letterman...<P ID="signature">______________
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[miamimadman]

A question, I saw Ted last night for the first time in about a Year. He Announced the opening Date, not the Nightline/ABC Announcer Dean Webber (Former KCOP Los Angeles New Anchor). Is this new? I just don't watch Nightline anymore, for the same reasons you mentioned. Ted was great last night!

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

I also watched "Nightline" last night (July 7th), and I thought it was one of the better shows they had done in a long time.

Unless ABC News can persuade Ted Koppel to delay his retirement, Chris Bury is probably the best possible succeessor.

While some editions of "Nightline" have examoined issues not necessarily in the day's headlines, I would reformat it to be (except on very slow news days) a half-hour examination of the day's single biggest national/international news story, something I feel that in recent years they haven't done often enough.

The next few editions of "Nightline" probably will be doing just that: I would think that tonight (July 8th), they'll update the London subway attacks; and this coming Monday (July 11th), they might report on Hurricane Dennis, which will probably have made landfall in the Florida panhandle by then.

Assuming that this Wednesday's (July 13th) launch of the space shuttle Discovery (the first U.S. manned space flight since the Columbia disaster) stays on-schedule, I expect that the shuttle would be the subject of "Nightline" both this coming Tuesday (a preview of the launch and mission) and Wednesday (a replay of the launch, a progres report on the mission, and hopefully, Koppel moderating a panel to discuss the future of manned space flight).

 

[miamimadman]

Who could have filled Ted's Shoes?

I always thought Aaron Brown & Forrest Sawyer did a great Job filling in for Ted. To a lesser degree Chris Wallace, George Stephanopoulos, Morton Dean, Jeff Greenfield, Catherine Crier, Barbra Walters, and the always interesting Robert Krulwich!

 

[dampier]

> I also watched "Nightline" last night (July 7th), and I
> thought it was one of the better shows they had done in a
> long time.
>
> Unless ABC News can persuade Ted Koppel to delay his
> retirement, Chris Bury is probably the best possible
> succeessor.

I have a feeling that will be short-lived. I suspect Nightline will be retired without Koppel, but probably not right away. Then it could exist as news specials or simply fade away so ABC can either turn the time back to affiliates or come up with something else.