PRESS: ABC YA, ROONE

Asked a few months ago about the challenge of keeping ABC the top-ranked network in TV news, Roone Arledge reached for an example from his old days in sports. "One of my heroes was Casey Stengel," he said. "He used to rebuild while still winning pennants."

ABC News has won a lot of pennants in its day, but for the first time in many years, some rebuilding may be in order. Yet Arledge, after nearly 20 years as news-division president, may not be on the field to guide the team to a comeback. Last week ABC announced that Arledge, 65, will ascend to the newly created post of chairman of the news division. Replacing him as president--and eventual successor--is David Westin, 44, currently president of the television-network group, but a man with no news experience. (Westin will report to Arledge--who previously reported to Westin. Both jobs were described as promotions. Isn't television wonderful?)

Arledge insists the move does not mean he is yielding the reins at ABC News. "I am not stepping down," he told TIME. "I am not changing my duties at all. David Westin is joining us as a bridge to the future." But for close readers of network tea leaves, the move had more resonance than a mere juggling of titles. By giving up the job he has held since 1977, Arledge is acknowledging that retirement is in sight and that the Arledge era is nearing an end. And by laying the groundwork for his succession, ABC bosses are taking the sort of bold action needed to revitalize a news organization that seems to have passed its best days.

ABC News has hit troubles on several fronts. After eight years of ratings dominance, Peter Jennings' evening newscast, World News Tonight, has been overtaken in recent weeks by the snazzier, more cleverly packaged NBC Nightly News. Creatively too, ABC's flagship newscast seems adrift, first softening the show to combat NBC, more recently retrenching a bit and trying to reassert its hard-news credentials. Good Morning America, the No. 1-rated morning show for much of the '90s, has slipped into second place, well behind NBC's Today show. Of course the network still has the indispensable Nightline, which frequently beats both Letterman and Leno in the late-night ratings; two successful prime-time magazine shows in 20/20 and PrimeTime Live; and the most impressive array of news stars in television. But one of them, Diane Sawyer, could use a window in her contract to jump to CBS, while several others--Jennings, Barbara Walters, Sam Donaldson, Ted Koppel--are getting a little long in the tooth. "It's no secret that there's been a certain malaise at ABC News," says Brit Hume, former chief White House correspondent, who left ABC for Fox News in December. "There's an unmistakable sense of gradual decline."