News emerges, via veteran U.S. TV writer Tom Shales, of Martin Bashir. In case you’d forgotten, he’s on the post-Ted Koppel Nightline, which airs on ABC (imagine the post-Jon Snow Channel 4 News). Shales notes that:

Nightline has survived its initial case of post-Koppel stress disorder and emerged a solid, ambitious news broadcast, one that does multiple topics on most nights and usually does them well. The pieces are smartly-produced and the studio segments deftly handled by anchors Cynthia McFadden and Terry Moran – and yes, even by Martin Bashir, the British journalist who was awfully hard to take at first. He was worse than just a fish out of water; he was one of those freaky fish that tries to hop from the lake right into your lap. He rocked the boat, but not in a good way.

Now Bashir seems less stiff and retro on the air, less like the ghost of Westbrook van Voorhis or some other ancient mariner. [TV Week]

(BTW Van Voorhis was an old-time radio and TV announcer) And speaking of old-time, Talk hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman are losing ground even as Nightline is registering modest progress:

4 percent from the same week last year to 3.75 million total viewers, 4 percent better than 3.6 million in 2005. Season-to-date, Nightline is up 200,000 viewers over last year.

It’s the only late-night program with year-to-date growth in 18-49s. Leno at 1.9 and Letterman at 1.5 are flat, while Nightline is up 9 percent, from a 1.1 to a 1.2. [Media Life]

Still, some clear blue water between news and chat.