Basking in The Shadow Of Ted Koppel

By splitting the show into three to four segments most nights, "Nightline" has not just tinkered with the Koppel model but junked it. Segments come and go before gaining traction, and without the in-depth interviews that were Koppel's trademark. Moran's sit-down with former president Bill Clinton was dispensed with in eight minutes.

On the show's opening night, McFadden says, she was given four minutes to talk to two priests about gays in the clergy.

"Bad idea," she says. "So it failed."

Now, she says, the program is moving toward allotting two segments for the lead story more often.

The critics have damned the show with faint praise. "Just a respectable if slightly overheated newsmagazine now," Paul Brownfield wrote in the Los Angeles Times. It "isn't terrible," Alessandra Stanley said in the New York Times, and some segments are "quite good," but overall "the revised show is surprisingly ordinary, a flimsy, fast-moving magazine show like '20/20.' "

Last Friday's edition was typical. For a look at childhood obesity, McFadden followed a 368-pound teenager preparing for stomach-reducing surgery and chatted up various experts. This was followed by a Moran feature from a Rockville rink on the prevalence of injuries to young ice skaters, and then a ditty on "James Blond," the actor Daniel Craig, who lacks Sean Connery's dark hair.

On Tuesday, "Nightline" kissed off excerpts of an exclusive Elizabeth Vargas interview with President Bush in two minutes, while devoting more time to a Mabrey report on a new movie, a comedy about the romantic trials of a successful black woman.

Asked if American audiences can sit still for half an hour on one subject, Goldston says that "people lead busy lives" and have no tolerance for news reports that are longer than necessary.

Donvan, describing himself as among those "most sorry to see the old regime go," says the switch to live programming at 11:35 p.m. "keeps us all much more on our toes all day long because we're in a world where the show can change at the last minute. It crackles with more energy because it's live."

He cites the nighttime decision to jump on news that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had suffered a stroke and that he was able to provide a live update after flying to Jerusalem. "Nightline" also scrambled the jets for Moran to interview a Hamas leader when the terrorist organization won the Palestinian elections.

Donvan says he finds it "liberating" to tackle subjects that don't warrant more than a few minutes, saying: "Sometimes in the old show we did spectacular things in that half-hour, and sometimes we didn't."

The audience, says Goldston, is still getting to know his triumvirate.

"There are a few iconic figures in the business that people tune in to see what they think, and certainly Ted Koppel was one of those people," McFadden says. "None of the three of us are close to that."

But the upside of the team approach, she says, is "we can continue to be reporters."