'20/20' Walters departure heralds new order

She'll do about six interview specials a year for ABC News.
By DAVID BAUDER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- Barbara Walters' decision to step away from "20/20" promises a new pecking order in the competition she's dominated for decades -- for prime-time, celebrity TV interviews.
Starting in September, Walters will no longer be co-host of ABC's "20/20," the newsmagazine she's called home since 1979.
Walters, 74, will do about six interview specials a year for ABC News, including her annual pre-Oscar show. She'll also stay as executive producer and occasional co-host of "The View," the daytime talk show she created.
"Because there are so many shows on and because I've been so hands-on -- I've had a piece on almost every single week -- I don't know how to cut back on that," she said earlier this week. "You really can't."
ABC hasn't publicly discussed a replacement; Elizabeth Vargas would be one obvious possibility. John Stossel is Walters' current co-host.
A Barbara Walters interview, often done with a soft-focus camera and subjects who break into tears, is as much a part of television news lore as Mike Wallace inducing someone to sweat on "60 Minutes."
Increasingly important
The bagging of a big celebrity interview has become an increasingly important attention-getting device for newsmagazines, which have faded somewhat in influence with the popularity of reality TV.
Walters isn't unbeatable, but she's known as a relentless competitor and is often the first interviewer a celebrity considers for a prime-time Q-and-A. During the past year, she spoke to a post-indictment Martha Stewart and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Her March 1999 interview with Monica Lewinsky drew a staggering 48.5 million viewers.
Competitors
At ABC, Walters' decision clears a path for her chief in-house competitor, Diane Sawyer, who was the sounding board for last week's prime-time appearance by Howard Dean and his wife.
Robin Roberts and Lara Spencer of "Good Morning America" may also pick up some of the slack at ABC.
Katie Couric has been molded into NBC's version of Walters over the past few years, while Pat O'Brien of "Access Hollywood" has also done some celebrity-oriented interview for NBC.
"The type of person that used to go to Barbara Walters might be inclined to go to (CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent) Ed Bradley," said Andrew Tyndall, head of ADT Research, which monitors the content of newsmagazines. "He changed his image somewhat with the Michael Jackson interview, for better or ill."
ABC might fiddle with the format of "20/20" to make it less dependent on big interviews.
"I'd be less than honest if I didn't confess to a moment or two of concern over losing Barbara Walters' weekly presence on one of our most important programs," ABC News President David Westin said in a memo to his staff.
But he said he's confident in Walters' judgment and the program's strength.
Walters said she's known for about a year she wanted to step down, but waited for the right time to announce so the news wouldn't detract from her Clinton and Stewart interviews.
"20/20" is averaging just under 10 million viewers a week this season, up from 8.8 million last year.