World News with Charles Gibson
Encyclopedia
ABC World News is the flagship daily evening program of ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

, the news division of the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 television network in the United States. Currently, the weekday editions are anchored
News presenter
A news presenter is a person who presents news during a news program in the format of a television show, on the radio or the Internet.News presenters can work in a radio studio, television studio and from remote broadcasts in the field especially weather...

 by Diane Sawyer
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....

 and the weekend editions are anchored by David Muir
David Muir
David Muir is an American journalist and anchor for ABC News, the news division of the ABC broadcast-television network based in New York City, New York.-Early life and education:...

. The program has been anchored at various times by a number of other people since its debut in 1953. It also has used various titles, including ABC Evening News from 1970 to 1978 and World News Tonight from 1978 to 2006.

History

ABC first began a nightly newscast in fall 1953 with John Charles Daly
John Charles Daly
John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (generally known as John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was an American journalist, game show host and radio personality, probably best known for hosting...

 as anchor of the then-fifteen-minute John Charles Daly and the News. Daly, who also hosted the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

 What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....

 contemporaneously, anchored the news until 1960 with multiple hosts and formats succeeding him. Anchors during the early 1960s included Alex Dreier
Alex Dreier
Alex Dreier was an American news reporter and commentator who worked with NBC Radio during the 1940s, and later with the ABC Information Radio network in the 1960s and early '70s.-Early years and broadcasting:...

, John Secondari, Fendall Winston Yerxa, Al Mann, Bill Shadel
Bill Shadel
Bill Shadel was an American news anchor for CBS Radio and ABC Television.Edward R. Murrow recruited Shadel while he was working in Europe as a correspondent for the National Rifle Association. During World War II, Shadel covered the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion for CBS Radio. During his years at...

, John Cameron Swayze
John Cameron Swayze
John Cameron Swayze was a popular news commentator and game show panelist in the United States during the 1950s.- Early life :...

 (formerly of NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

), Bill Laurence, and Bill Sheehan. In 1962, Ron Cochran
Ron Cochran
Ron Cochran was a television news journalist for ABC and CBS. He served as the anchor of the ABC Evening News from 1962 to 1965. In November 1963, he served as the network's principal anchor for the around-the-clock coverage of the Kennedy assassination...

 was made full-time anchor, serving until 1965. Then, in 1965, a twenty-six-year-old Canadian, Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...

, was named anchor of Peter Jennings with the News.

In 1967, the inexperienced Jennings left the anchor chair and was reassigned as an international correspondent for the news program. ABC News was hosted, in succession, by Bob Young
Bob Young (news anchor)
Robert H. "Bob" Young was a television news journalist for ABC News. He served as the anchor of The ABC Evening News from October 1967 to May 1968. Young's most noteworthy broadcast took place on April 4, 1968, when he anchored ABC's coverage of the assassination of Dr...

 (October 1967 to May 1968), Frank Reynolds
Frank Reynolds
Frank James Reynolds was an American television journalist for ABC and CBS News.He was a New York-based anchor of the ABC Evening News from 1968 to 1970 and later as the Washington D.C.-based co-anchor of World News Tonight from 1978 until his death in 1983...

 (May 1968 to May 1969), and, eventually, Reynolds and Howard K. Smith
Howard K. Smith
Howard Kingsbury Smith was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original Edward R. Murrow boys.-Early life:...

 (May 1969 to December 1970). The program did not expand from fifteen to thirty minutes until January 1967, almost four years after both CBS and NBC had expanded their evening news programs.

Reasoner, Smith, and Walters

Harry Reasoner
Harry Reasoner
Harry Truman Reasoner was an American journalist for ABC and CBS News, known for his inventive use of language as a television commentator, and as a founder of the 60 Minutes program.-Biography:...

, formerly of CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...

 and 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....

, joined ABC News in 1970 to co-anchor ABC Evening News with Smith, beginning that December, replacing Reynolds. In 1975, Smith was moved to commentator, and Reasoner briefly assumed sole-anchor responsibilities until his pairing in 1976 with Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...

, the first female network anchor. Ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 for the nightly news broadcast declined shortly thereafter, possibly due in part to the lack of chemistry between Reasoner and Walters. Reasoner would eventually return to CBS and 60 Minutes, while Walters became a regular on the newsmagazine 20/20.

"First News" strategy (1960s–1982)

Because the ABC network had nowhere near the number of affiliates as the other two major networks and, thus, especially in smaller markets, was sometimes carried by a station primarily affiliated with another network, ABC News chose to feed its evening newscast to its affiliates at 6 p.m. Eastern Time
Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...

/5 p.m. Central Time
Central Time zone
In North America, the Central Time Zone refers to national time zones which observe standard time by subtracting six hours from UTC , and daylight saving, or summer time by subtracting five hours...

, one half-hour ahead of CBS and NBC. Even in areas with three full-time affiliates, ABC stations often opted to broadcast the news in the 6 p.m./5 p.m. timeslot to entice viewers by presenting the day's national and international news first, thus making it more likely that they would stay tuned to the station's local newscast immediately following (or one half-hour afterward), instead of turning to CBS or NBC. In some markets, especially in the Eastern Time Zone, it was not unusual for the ABC affiliate to air its local newscast at 5:30 p.m., followed by the network news at 6 p.m., then syndicated situation-comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 reruns or game shows from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (or 8 p.m., after the Prime Time Access Rule
Prime Time Access Rule
The Prime Time Access Rule was instituted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1970 to restrict the amount of network broadcast programming that a local television station, Owned-and-operated station by or affiliated with a television network may air during "prime time"...

 went into effect in 1971). As the youngest and least-viewed of the networks, ABC News employed the strategy to get a foothold on the American public's consciousness, although stations were quite free to tape-delay the feed in order to run it against the other two networks, or, in some larger markets especially, at 7 p.m./6 p.m.

Starting in 1973, before the advent of closed captioning
Closed captioning
Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information to individuals who wish to access it...

, PBS would air an open captioned version of ABC News five hours after its broadcast on ABC; the practice continued until 1982.

By 1982, when nearly all of the nation was served by full-time ABC affiliates and the evening newscast began winning the ratings, the network discontinued the practice and started feeding the news to stations at the conventional time of 6:30 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific
Pacific Time Zone
The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...

)/5:30 p.m. (Central/Mountain
Mountain Time Zone
The Mountain Time Zone of North America keeps time by subtracting seven hours from Coordinated Universal Time, also known as Greenwich Mean Time, during the shortest days of autumn and winter , and by subtracting six hours during daylight saving time in the spring, summer, and early autumn...

) on weeknights. However, the weekend editions still air live at 6 p.m./5 p.m.

The early years (1978–1983)

Always the perennial third in the national ratings, ABC News president Roone Arledge
Roone Arledge
Roone Pickney Arledge, Jr. was an American sports broadcasting pioneer who was chairman of ABC News from 1977 until several years before his death, and a key part of the company's rise to competition with the two other main television networks, NBC and CBS, in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.-Early...

 reformatted the program, relaunching it as World News Tonight on July 10, 1978. Reynolds, demoted when the network hired Reasoner, returned as lead anchor, reporting from Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. Max Robinson
Max Robinson
Max Robinson was an American broadcast journalist, and ABC News World News Tonight co-anchor. He was the first African American broadcast network news anchor in the United States and one of the first television journalists to die of AIDS...

, the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 network news anchor, anchored national news from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, and, also returning for a second stint, Jennings reported international headlines from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Occasional contributions included special reports by Walters, who was credited as anchor of the special coverage desk from New York City and worldwide, and commentary by Smith, who was easing into eventual retirement. The program’s distinct and easily identifiable theme was written by Bob Israel. Ratings slowly climbed to the point where World News Tonight eventually beat both NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...

 and the CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....

, marking the first time ever that ABC had the most-popular network evening newscast.

Also during this time, World News Tonight aired an open-captioned version on various public television
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 stations throughout the U.S., produced by Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, station WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...

. In place of commercials, WGBH inserted additional news stories, some of which were of special interest to deaf people, as well as late-news developments, weather forecasts, and sports scores. This version aired mostly in late-night hours, several hours after the original newscast.

Peter Jennings (1983–2005)

See also: Peter Jennings: Leaving the chair

In April 1983, Reynolds became ill, leaving both Jennings and Robinson to co-anchor the broadcast until he planned to return; he never did and died from bone cancer on July 20, 1983. A rotation of anchors hosted the program until August 9, 1983, when Jennings became the sole anchor and senior editor of World News Tonight. The program began emanating from New York City on a regular basis in September 1983, at which time Bill Owen
Bill Owen
William John Owen Rowbotham MBE , better known as Bill Owen, was an English actor and songwriter.-Career:...

 replaced Bill Rice as announcer for a year.

In September 1984, the program was renamed World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in order to reflect its sole anchor and senior editor. Robinson left ABC News in 1984, after stints of hosting news briefs and anchoring weekend editions of World News Tonight; he died from complications of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 in 1988.

With Jennings as lead anchor, World News Tonight was the most-watched national newscast from February 27, 1989, to November 1, 1996, but from then until February 2007, it was in second place behind its main rival, NBC Nightly News.

In April 2005, Jennings announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 and, as before, other ABC News anchors, mostly consisting of 20/20 co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas
Elizabeth Vargas
Elizabeth Vargas is an American television journalist who is anchor of ABC's television newsmagazine 20/20 and ABC News Specials. She was previously an anchor of World News Tonight.-Early years:...

 and Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

 co-anchor Gibson, filled in for him. Jennings died of lung cancer on August 7, 2005, at his apartment in New York City, at age 67.

The August 8, 2005, edition of the program was dedicated to Jennings's memory and four-decade career in news. His death ended the era of the so-called Big Three anchors: Jennings, NBC's Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...

, and CBS's Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...

. During his career, Jennings had reported from every major world capital and war zone, and from all fifty U.S. states, according to the network. Jennings was known for his ability to calmly portray events as they were happening and for his coverage of many major world events.

As a tribute to its late anchor, ABC continued to introduce the broadcast as World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in the week following his death. Charles Gibson
Charles Gibson
Charles deWolf "Charlie" Gibson is a former American broadcast television anchor and journalist. He was a host of Good Morning America from 1987 to 1998 and 1999 to 2006 and anchor of World News with Charles Gibson from 2006 to 2009....

 anchored the broadcast the first part of the week. Bob Woodruff anchored the final edition of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings on August 12, 2005. That night's broadcast ended with one of Jennings's favorite pieces of music instead of the traditional theme music. Beginning August 15, 2005, the broadcast was introduced simply as World News Tonight and stayed that way until January 2006.

Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas (January 2006–May 2006)

In early December 2005, ABC News announced that Vargas and Bob Woodruff would be the new permanent co-anchors, replacing Jennings. People in the news industry looked at the choice of Vargas and Woodruff by ABC News as the start of a new era in network television news.

The broadcast was produced live three times per day — the regular Eastern/Central Time Zones live broadcast, plus separate broadcasts for the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones. In addition, a live webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...

, World News Now, with a newsbrief and a preview of that evening's broadcast, was added. The webcast currently airs live at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC News Now
ABC News Now
ABC News Now is an American 24-hour news channel offered via digital television, broadband and streaming video at ABCNews.com and on mobile phones. It delivers breaking news, headline news each half hour, and wide range of entertainment and lifestyle programs. The channel is currently available in...

 and ABCNews.com and can be viewed throughout the rest of the day after 4 p.m. Eastern Time.

On January 29, 2006, Woodruff and his cameraman, Doug Vogt
Doug Vogt
Doug Vogt is a Canadian photojournalist and cameraman. He was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He lived 25 years in Europe and presently calls Los Angeles, USA his new home...

, were injured by a road-side bomb while riding in an Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

i military convoy. Both underwent surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Balad (fifty miles north of Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, Iraq). It was reported that both men suffered head injuries, even though they were both wearing body armor and helmets. Both men were then evacuated to a U.S military hospital in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Woodruff and Vogt were later transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital in the U.S. for further treatment and released for outpatient treatment.

Within a few months after Woodruff's accident, ABC News announced that Vargas was pregnant and due to give birth in late summer.

For about a month, Good Morning America co-hosts Gibson and Sawyer had taken turns co-anchoring the newscast with Vargas. During the spring of 2006, Vargas mostly anchored the broadcast alone, becoming the first de facto solo female evening news anchor. At the time, it was unknown what ABC News planned to do until Woodruff returned to the anchor chair, which appeared to be nowhere in the near future, and when Vargas began her maternity leave. Rumors flew that Sawyer wanted to become the sole anchor of WNT in order to beat Katie Couric
Katie Couric
Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...

's switch to the CBS anchor chair. However, the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

s Cindy Adams
Cindy Adams
Cindy Adams is an American gossip columnist and writer. She is the widow of comedian and humorist Joey Adams.-Early life and education:Born an only child in New York City, she was one year old when her parents divorced...

 reported that Gibson would become Woodruff's "temporary permanent replacement".

Also starting that spring (2006), the West Coast editions of World News Tonight were scaled back because Vargas anchored the broadcast on her own at the time.

World News

Charles Gibson (May 2006–December 2009)

In May 2006, Vargas announced her resignation from World News Tonight. Gibson was then named sole anchor of the program, effectively replacing Vargas and her injured co-anchor Woodruff. Vargas cited her doctors' recommendation to cut back her schedule considerably because of her maternity leave, and her wish to spend more time with her new baby. She has since returned to co-anchor 20/20 and ABC News specials and has substituted for Gibson on World News Tonight.

Woodruff, although still recovering from his injuries, returned to World News Tonight as a correspondent on February 28, 2007.

While the 3 p.m. World News Now webcast remains, the separate Mountain and Pacific Time Zone editions have been scrapped. Gibson continued to update the newscast as warranted for these time zones, but the entire newscast was not presented live, as was previously the case.

Some media analysts found the reasons for the change to be merely a cover for ABC Newss real intentions to bring stability to its flagship news program that had been slipping in the ratings, and to attract some older viewers away from the CBS Evening News with interim anchor Bob Schieffer
Bob Schieffer
Bob Lloyd Schieffer is an American television journalist who has been with CBS News since 1969, serving 23 years as anchor on the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News from 1973 to 1996; chief Washington correspondent since 1982, moderator of the Sunday public affairs show Face the Nation since...

. Indeed, the advertising campaign focused on Gibson's experience, calling Gibson "Your Trusted Source", similar to a campaign for Jennings, "Trust Is Earned", in the wake of the Killian documents controversy
Killian documents controversy
The Killian documents controversy involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard in 1972–73...

 at CBS and Brian Williams
Brian Williams
Brian Douglas Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004...

's assumption of the NBC anchor chair.

On July 19, 2006, ABC News announced that World News Tonight would have its name officially changed to World News With Charles Gibson. The network chose to make the small name change in order to reflect the program's availability twenty-four hours a day through its webcast and through ABCNews.com.

In the February 2007 sweeps, World News with Charles Gibson achieved the number-one spot in the Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 for nightly news broadcasts, overtaking NBC Nightly News. This was ABC Newss first victory since the week Jennings died in August 2005.

Starting in April 2007, Gibson announced that Monday broadcasts of World News would be expanded editions allowing only one commercial interruption to feature extended special segments on global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

.

World News With Charles Gibson won the May 2007 sweeps period decisively over NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, marking Gibson's second consecutive sweep win and widening his lead in the evening-news race. That was the first time World News had won consecutive sweeps since 1996, the year ABC News ceded the ratings crown to NBC Newss Brokaw. NBC was back on top in the December 2007 sweeps and the two programs remained in a tight race until the fall of 2008, when the NBC program established a consistent lead.

When Gibson was away or on assignment, substitute anchors included Harris, Muir, Sawyer, George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...

, and Vargas, with Sawyer being the primary substitute.

On December 31, 2007, World News with Charles Gibson debuted a new high-definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

-ready set, featuring the ABC News logo prominently carved out of wood in front with logo's colors, a rear-projection screen, and plasma screens. It began broadcasting in high definition on August 25, 2008, during its coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention
2008 Democratic National Convention
The United States 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for President and Vice President of the United States. The convention was held in Denver,...

. The graphics were updated. News theme is unchanged.

On September 2, 2009, ABC News announced that Gibson would retire from ABC News altogether on December 18, 2009, and that Sawyer would assume the anchor desk on December 21, 2009. Gibson's final broadcast ended with a video tribute that included all of the living ex-U.S. Presidents
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

, former ABC anchors, actors and actresses, singers, comedians, Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

, Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog is puppeteer Jim Henson's most famous Muppet creation, first introduced in 1955. He is the protagonist of many Muppet projects, most notably as the host of The Muppet Show, and has appeared in various sketches on Sesame Street, in commercials and in public service announcements over...

, athletes, the commander of the International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

, competitors Couric and Williams, and, lastly, U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

.

Diane Sawyer (December 2009–present)

Sawyer began anchoring the broadcast on December 21, 2009. On the same date, the program debuted an updated set, new graphics during the introductory segment, along with a new announcer, Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe may refer to:*Michael Rowe, television writer for Futurama*Mike Rowe , host of the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs* Mike Rowe , retired Canadian professional ice hockey player...

, who replaced longtime announcer Bill Rice.

A new set for the program was launched on August 23, 2010.

The Sawyer tenure has been marked by a shift towards more soft news and infotainment
Infotainment
Infotainment is "information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers." It is a neologistic portmanteau of information and entertainment, referring to a type of media which provides a combination of...

 features, and less of a focus on world news (despite the title). According to analyst Andrew Tyndall, ABC spends half of its newscast on "soft news" features such as health and celebrity stories, with many stories of the same type as on 'Sawyer's Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

. ABC defended this by stating "there's nothing with not being boring," and that health and medical stories have direct impact on viewer's lives. World News has a 60% female viewership, the highest of the three major newscasts.

Substitute anchors

Good Morning America co-anchor and Chief Political Correspondent George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...

, weekend World News anchor and weekday correspondent David Muir
David Muir
David Muir is an American journalist and anchor for ABC News, the news division of the ABC broadcast-television network based in New York City, New York.-Early life and education:...

, and 20/20 and former World News Tonight co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas
Elizabeth Vargas
Elizabeth Vargas is an American television journalist who is anchor of ABC's television newsmagazine 20/20 and ABC News Specials. She was previously an anchor of World News Tonight.-Early years:...

 anchor in place of Sawyer, with Stephanopoulos being the primary substitute.

Weekend newscasts

ABC's first attempt at an early evening weekend newscast took place in July 1975, with a Saturday bulletin anchored by Ted Koppel
Ted Koppel
Edward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...

. The broadcast, however, did not have many stations carrying it, and it was cancelled about one year later.

Three years afterward, WNT expanded to six nights a week with World News Sunday on January 28, 1979, and to a full seven days with the return to Saturdays on January 5, 1985, years after the two other historical networks had added weekend newscasts.

These editions added the word "Tonight" in the mid-1990s, and in the mid-2000s, their respective names were shortened to simply World News Tonight to correspond with the weekday editions. However, the original names were restored on July 19, 2006, to go along with the weekday broadcast's name change, but the title card reads World News for both days.

Prior to 1975, the only network newscasts ABC stations broadcast on weekends were fifteen-minute late-night updates on Saturdays and Sundays, seen on many affiliates in tandem with the local 11 p.m. Eastern/10 p.m. Central newscasts, although some stations opted to tape-delay them until immediately before sign-off time; rival CBS also offered a fifteen-minute Sunday night bulletin during the 1970s and 1980s. Because of declining affiliate interest from low viewership (in part because of the proliferation of twenty-four-hour cable news channels such as CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

), ABC discontinued the late-night weekend reports in 1991.

Also, starting in 1973, weeknight co-anchor Reasoner hosted The Reasoner Report, a half-hour topical look at important stories (especially breaking developments in the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...

) in the vein of CBS's 60 Minutes, which Reasoner himself co-moderated at two different times. Affiliates usually carried the program on Saturday evenings in the time slots where the main newscast aired on weeknights. The program, which had affiliate clearance problems and was thus unsuccessful in terms of ratings, ended in 1975, replaced by the network's inaugural Saturday newscast (see above).

Some former anchors of the weekend news include Sam Donaldson
Sam Donaldson
Samuel Andrew "Sam" Donaldson, Jr. is a reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to the present, best known as the network's White House Correspondent and as a panelist and later co-anchor of the network's Sunday Program "This Week."-Early life and career:Donaldson was born in El...

 (World News Sunday, 1979–1989), Kathleen Sullivan
Kathleen Sullivan (journalist)
Kathleen Sullivan is an American television journalist.She was one of a small group of anchors and reporters which launched CNN, a cable news channel, which led to the 24-hour news cycle of the U.S. cable news broadcast within the field of journalism. Her career has been involved in nearly every...

 (World News Saturday, 1985–1987), Forrest Sawyer
Forrest Sawyer
Forrest Sawyer is an American broadcast journalist. Sawyer worked 11 years with ABC News, where he frequently anchored ABC World News Tonight and Nightline and reported for all ABC News broadcasts...

 (World News Saturday, 1987–1993), Carole Simpson
Carole Simpson
Carole Simpson is a broadcast journalist, news anchor, and author- Biography :Simpson, a graduate of the University of Michigan, began her career on radio at WCFL in Chicago, Illinois. She moved to television at Chicago's WMAQ and onto NBC News in 1974, becoming the first African-American woman...

 (World News Sunday, 1989–2003), Aaron Brown
Aaron Brown
Aaron Brown is an American broadcast journalist most recognized for his coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks, his first day on air at CNN...

 (World News Saturday, 1993–1997), Vargas (World News Saturday, 1997–2003) & (World News Sunday, 2003–2004), Terry Moran
Terry Moran
Terry Moran is the co-anchor of Nightline.-Biography:Moran was born in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Lawrence University in 1982.-Professional career:-Career as Correspondent:...

 (World News Saturday, (2004–2005) Bob Woodruff (World News Sunday, 2004–2005) and Dan Harris (World News Sunday, 2006–2011). Since David Muir, who had taken over World News Saturday in 2007, took over the Sunday broadcast in 2011, ABC has renamed both broadcasts to ABC World News with David Muir.

Some ABC affiliates in the Central and Mountain Time Zones air the Sunday edition at 6 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Central — one half-hour earlier than the rest of the week's broadcasts — in which case, the ABC affiliate airs its local early-evening newscast after the network newscast (this is the same with CBS, which airs the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News on all of its affiliates at 6 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Central). Some ABC affiliates, however (e.g., WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth), do not carry the Sunday edition of World News at all; weekend news clearances have always been a problem for the three historic networks. During the fall months, the Saturday broadcast is usually pre-empted by ABC's College Football coverage
College Football on ABC
ESPN College Football on ABC presented by Kay Jewelers is a presentation of the American Broadcasting Company's regular season American college football television package...

.

International newscasts

ABC News programming is shown for several hours a day on the twenty-four-hour news network Orbit News
Orbit News
OSN News is a 24 hour satellite and cable channel offering exclusively American news programming from ABC, NBC, PBS, and MSNBC to U.S. expats and other viewers abroad, primarily geared towards an audience in the Arab countries...

 in Europe and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. This includes ABC World News. Also, in the Middle East, it is broadcast free to air on MBC 4
MBC 4
MBC 4 is the first free-to-air national television channel in the Middle East aired specifically for American programs. The downside of this all is that MBC 2, MBC 3, MBC 4, MBC Action, MBC Max,and MBC Drama all show movies and TV programs that are edited: taking out all drug use, sexual content,...

.

In the U.K., the program used to be shown at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday-Friday on BBC News. BBC News is frequently simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...

 by BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 (and, less frequently, BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

) at this time, meaning the program was broadcast terrestrially in many parts of the U.K. The newscast was aired on delay in part because of the need to remove advertisements; the BBC's domestic channels are commercial-free.The program was replaced on the 14th June 2011 by Asia Business Report and Sport Today.

In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, WNT airs every morning at 10:30 a.m. AET on Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia is an Australian 24 hour cable and satellite news channel available in 2.5 million homes on Foxtel, Austar, Optus Television and Neighbourhood Cable subscription platforms....

. In New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, WNT is shown at 17:10 (5:10 p.m.) and 23:35 (11:35 p.m.) every evening on TVNZ 7. In Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, it was broadcast live on TVB Pearl
TVB Pearl
TVB Pearl is one of the two free television services in Hong Kong that mainly broadcast in the English language, the other being ATV World. It is owned and operated by Television Broadcasts Limited, and together with its sister Cantonese language station TVB Jade, is broadcast from TVB City at 77...

 daily at 7:30–8:00 a.m. Hong Kong time until May 31, 2009 and replaced by NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...

. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 it airs on NHK BS 1
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....

 as part of the weekday morning Ohayo Sekai (Wake Up To The World) program, and in clip form in the ABC News Shower English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 education program.

Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...

's Great Belize Television
Great Belize Television
Great Belize Television, or as it is locally known, Channel 5, is a Belize City-based local television station established in December of 1991. Channel 5 airs mostly American and Caribbean programs, as well as a variety of locally produced programs...

carries all editions of World News Tonight at 8:00 p.m. CST (Mon.-Fri.), 7:00 p.m. (Saturdays) and 7:00 p.m. (Sundays).

External links

(includes production details on World News Tonight and World News)
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