When Peter Jennings passed away and Bob Woodruff was injured, one of the names that popped up as a replacement on ABC World News was Diane Sawyer. Now, a couple of years later, that's actually coming true.

ABC has announced that Charles Gibson will step down as anchor of the show in January. Sawyer will take over for him. Of course, that means that Sawyer will step down from her hosting gig on Good Morning America. No, I don't think there's any chance that Gibson will switch places with her and go back to GMA, but who the heck knows (ABC is using the word "retires"). Gibson does say that he wants to continue working with ABC News in some way.

So we have two big stories here: two women as network news anchors (Sawyer and Katie Couric at CBS) and the question of who will replace Sawyer in the morning. Or maybe they'll just stick with three hosts/co-hosts (Robin Roberts, Chris Cuomo, and Sam Champion). Who do you think should take over on GMA?

That's the news from Joe Hagen at New York magazine, in this long (but worth reading) piece. Before ABC tapped Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas to be co-anchors on World News Tonight, they approached Charles Gibson, asking him to "keep the seat warm" until the 2008 election and then they would find a permanent anchor. But Gibson said he didn't want to just fill the seat (and he also didn't want to continue doing Good Morning, America), and that if he didn't get the anchor position for good - and without Vargas - then he was going to walk.

Vargas is said to have been surprised by her ouster from the show.

[via Romenesko]