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The name of news

ABC News said it has changed the name of its evening newscast to reflect new anchorman Charles Gibson and its expansion into the digital realm.

The change from World News Tonight to World News with Charles Gibson occurred Wednesday. Gibson and executive producer Jon Banner revealed it at a meeting of the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, Calif., earlier in the day. The pair talked to reporters via satellite from the Middle East, where they are covering the violence between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

The new name acknowledges what's been taking place in the past six months, Banner said. With a Web cast downloaded up to 2-million times a week through the Internet and iTunes, a network blog updated throughout the day and Gibson's participation in a 5 p.m. ABC News Radio broadcast, "World News is not on only at night," Banner said.

NBC WANTS NETFLIX'S BUZZ: NBC will let Netflix subscribers take sneak peeks at two new series before it premieres them. Subscribers of the online movie rental service will be able to rent DVDs with the debut episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Kidnapped starting Aug. 5, about six weeks before they air. NBC, fourth in prime-time viewers last season, hopes the arrangement will generate buzz for the shows.

'DESPERATE' MEASURES: Better times are coming to Desperate Housewives in the wake of a season that left critics, fans and people at the show and network unhappy, ABC Entertainment chief Steve McPherson told critics. Series creator Marc Cherry will be the sole executive producer after the departure of Tom Spezialy, who helped launch the show, McPherson said. "The early scripts and the story lines and arcs and the mystery are a lot stronger from the get-go," he said.

He didn't talk about why Spezialy left.

SOLVE THIS CASE: Few season finales last season generated as much heated debate among fans as CSI's, in which the final scene showed Sara (Jorja Fox) and Grissom (William Petersen) in the bedroom. The series had previously suggested such a scenario, but it was eyebrow-raising when it was finally portrayed.

"There have been raging debates in the writers' room since Season 1 about Sara's relationship with Grissom, pre-Las Vegas," executive producer Carol Mendelsohn told critics. "The room is fairly divided and has been over the seasons. I happen to think they were intimate (when they worked in San Francisco), but not once they got to Las Vegas, at least in the beginning. I won the debate.

"I think the idea going into (this season) is that Grissom and Sara, and the beautiful audience, are the only people who know this (affair) is taking place."

CHANNEL SURFING: Spike Lee is making a rare foray into series TV, signing a deal with NBC to develop a drama. He recently directed the pilot for the new CBS show Shark, which stars James Woods.

Information from Zap2it.com, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle and the Hollywood Reporter was used in this report.

[Last modified July 20, 2006, 23:50:21]