He left CBS in 1967, spent two years as executive director of the non-commercial Public Broadcasting Laboratory, and joined ABC News in 1969 as executive producer of the evening news, then anchored by Frank Reynolds. It was an era when “ABC Evening News” dogged the nightly news activities of CBS and NBC in prestige, ratings, and financial resources.
“My target is ‘H and B,'” Mr. Westin told The Indianapolis News in 1969, referring to NBC’s co-anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. “I think people get tired of them, and when they’re out shopping I want them to look at us before they automatically turn to Walter.” Cronkite.
Broadcast journalist Ted Koppel, who was a correspondent on the evening news program, said in a telephone interview of Mr. Westin, “He probably elevated the ‘ABC Evening News’ as much as anyone to Roone Arledge,” adding: “Av was a very ambitious man who thought he should have been president of ABC News.”
At ABC News, Mr. Westin’s “Close-Up” documentary unit, for which he won a Peabody Award in 1973. The following year, he won another Peabody for producing and directing the documentary “Sadat: Action Biography”, about Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat.
He left ABC News in 1976 in a dispute with Bill Sheehan, the division’s chairman, but returned two years later at the request of Mr. Arledge “to get rid of” the incompatible, feuding “Evening News” anchor team of Mrs. Walters and Harry Redener.
“The day I got back to ABC, one of the producers who was in the Reasoner camp came up to me and said, ‘You know, she owes us 5 minutes and 25 seconds,'” Mr. Westin told the Television Academy, referring to how much more Mrs. Walters had been on the air in the past year than Mr. Reasoner.
After returning as executive producer of “Evening News,” Mr. Westin along with Mr. Arledge on a 1978 overhaul that transformed the show into the faster, graphically oriented “World News Tonight,” featuring three anchors: Mr. Reynolds in Washington, Max Robinson in Chicago and Peter Jennings in London.
