NEW YORK - ABC correspondent Jake Tapper is seconds away from going live from Capitol Hill when anchor Charlie Gibson chimes into his earpiece.
Tapper, who just learned that his unborn first child is a girl, starts questioning himself. Is my story solid? Do I have enough sources? Should I tighten the lead?
Gibson has something else on his mind.
"Jacob," he says, "your life is about to become immeasurably more wonderful. And that little girl is going to own you for the rest of your life."
That bit of fatherly advice may be why Gibson - eight months shy of Social Security - has emerged as the most popular anchor in network news.
Avuncular sells.
CBS Evening News, with polarizing newbie Katie Couric, 50, is under house arrest in third place. Once-untouchable NBC Nightly News, anchored by edgy Brian Williams, 48, is bleeding viewers.
But ABC World News, with Charlie Gibson, a grandpa, is now a solid No. 1 in the Nielsen wars.
If there's one lesson to be learned from the recent tumult on the evening-news landscape, it's this: new and news don't necessarily work together for the over-60 crowd, the bulk of the evening news audience.
For all the networks' talk of reinventing the form, evening-news viewers are clearly more comfortable with traditional newscasts anchored by traditional types. (Translation: Non-threatening, older white men.)
Even Gibson's name brings to mind your favorite uncle.
Though ABC World News' announcer calls him Charles, the rest of the world knows him as Charlie. The only person who called him Charles, his brother, Lang, died in January 2006.
When Gibson broke into TV in 1970 at Washington's WJLA (then WMAL), he signed off as Charles because his mother "thought it gave me a stature that my age at the time [27] did not otherwise suggest."
These days, Gibson's stature is climbing the charts. With a bullet.
ABC World News has finished No. 1 for 11 consecutive weeks among total viewers, households and the target demographic of adults 25-54, according to Nielsen Media Research.
In the most recent figures (July 2-6), ABC had 7.48 million viewers - up 2 percent over the same period a year ago. NBC drew 6.84 million (down 5 percent) and CBS, 5.62 million (down 14 percent).
Nielsen data from the just-completed second quarter affirms ABC's startling turnaround. Gibson's newscast was up 7 percent over 2006; NBC was down 8 percent; and CBS, down 12 percent.
Even with his unqualified success, Gibson still can't believe he's got the job.
