Now that ABC is close to signing anchor Peter Jennings to a new contract, what`s the status of ”Nightline” host Ted Koppel, whose deal is up in December?
”Ted`s an extraordinary person,” ABC News chief Roone Arledge told reporters in New York recently. ”He has an idea of how he wants to spend his life, and that may not necessarily have anything to do with television.
”Ted isn`t the kind of person who`s going to go from one network to another, playing one network against the other. Ted`s the kind of guy who could decide to take a year off and do something else. I don`t think he will. He has often said, and I agree with him, he`s got the best job in television.”
Arledge said expects the Koppel contract negotiations to be ”an elaborate process” because, in part, ”Ted enjoys that. He loves negotiating. He followed Henry Kissinger on all the shuttle diplomacy, and he wasn`t kidding when he talked (in Newsweek magazine) about being secretary of state.”
