V&W: WNT’s Co-Anchor “Template”

T-minus 4: Variety’s Michael Learmonth previews the “new generation” of World News Tonight, premiering on Tuesday:

“There won’t be a lot of chit-chat; whichever one of us has the lead story will start off the broadcast, read the first few stories and toss to the other,” [Elizabeth] Vargas told Daily Variety. The two anchors will rarely be in the studio together; they’ll function more as uber-reporters, with one handling half of the broadcast from the field while the other reads stories from the studio. The broadcast will generally be divided into four blocks, with one anchor taking the lead story and the first block of four to five pieces before handing off to the other. “That is the template,” she said. “I don’t anticipate a ping-pong thing back and forth.”

“I’m not sure we will ever be at the same desk,” Vargas adds. “A new set is still in the design phase and will include multiple standing and sitting positions to accommodate a number of different props and configurations,” Learmonth reports…