Av Westin, an influential ABC News producer who turned 20/20 into a success, dies at 92

The New York Times

Westin was executive producer of World News Tonight in 1979 when he was tapped to lead 20/20, the ABC newsmagazine created by Roone Arledge that launched the previous year. "Over the next seven years, the program won more than 30 news and documentary Emmy Awards, including 11 in 1981," Richard Sandomir says in Westin's New York Times obituary. "Looking to differentiate 20/20 from the entertainment shows it competed with in prime-time, as well as from CBS’s 60 Minutes, Mr. Westin mixed ambitious investigative reports with celebrity profiles, lifestyle features and 'process pieces' about artistic endeavors like the making of a new album of standards by Linda Ronstadt. Before 20/20, Westin relaunched the troubled ABC Evening News, co-anchored by Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner, with the faster-paced, graphics-oriented World News Tonight, consisting of three anchors: Frank Reynolds in Washington, Max Robinson in Chicago and Peter Jennings in London. “He probably elevated the ABC Evening News as much as anyone until Roone Arledge,” said former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel. “Av was a very ambitious man, who thought he should have been ABC News president.”