The Late Riser

"He owes me," jokes Schieffer, 69, "for proving there's a future for old guys on TV. Charlie's just a good guy. He's been out on a beat and knows how to cover news, and I think he'll be a stabilizing force and formidable competition."

Despite his contention that anchoring shouldn't be a popularity contest, the wry, low-key Gibson ultimately will be judged a success or failure at the box office.

"You get comfortable with a particular newspaper," Gibson says. "It's the same thing with evening news shows. That's why it's hard to change people's habits. You can lose people rather quickly -- Dan got very controversial and all of a sudden people left. But it's difficult to get them to come to you."

A Heavy Load

At an editorial meeting for "World News Tonight" last week, the talk turned to a motorcycle accident involving Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

"He's said in the past that he prefers not to wear a helmet -- isn't it in his contract that he has to?" Gibson asked. When he was a local reporter in Washington, Gibson said, he owned a motorcycle, but his boss made him sell it by saying the company had so much invested in him.

"He was paying me $20,000 a year," Gibson said.

One producer suggested that ABC reporter John Berman take a look at Roethlisberger and motorcycle safety for the evening newscast, but another staffer said Berman was working on an unrelated story for "Good Morning America."

"Which show dominates?" Gibson asked. The conference room filled with laughter.

Gibson is working both the morning and evening shifts this month before bidding farewell to "Good Morning America" a week from tomorrow. On this particular morning he overslept -- waking up at 5:30 a.m., half an hour after he usually reports to the Times Square studio of "GMA" -- and can't suppress a few yawns.

Since signing Gibson to a new three-year deal, ABC has wasted little time in touting him as the voice of experience. "Charles Gibson: He's been there, seen it, brought us the world," a promotional spot says. "Times when the truth needed to be uncovered, he never backed down. . . . In times like these it's important to trust the source."

Such accolades make him sound like an obvious choice. Gibson is "very much in the Peter Jennings tradition," says ABC News President David Westin. "Particularly in time of national emergency or some of the bigger stories we've covered, having someone tried and true, who people have experience with over a long period of time, is very reassuring."

But Westin decided against giving Gibson the job last fall, rejecting his insistence on serving at least three years and rolling the dice on two younger anchors. Vargas, who soon discovered she was pregnant, found herself working impossible hours after Woodruff's injury.