PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer recently told a Baltimore Sun reporter that he believes the anchorman era will never end:

“I have been kind of amused by all this stuff,” Lehrer said last week. “Everybody’s saying, ‘Well, it’s the end of the anchorman era.’ But then there’s Brian Williams, who’s got about 10 million people watching him every night on NBC, so what the [expletive] is that all about? I’ve kept my powder dry on this. You’re the first who asked me about it directly. But I’ve been amused, because I just don’t get it”… [snip]
“Yes, there are all these other things happening in cable news and other media. But the basic function of delivering the news one-on-one is still alive and well, and that era is not going to ever end in my opinion. When I leave, it will be the end of the Lehrer era, but it won’t be the end of anything other than that.”

Don’t tell that to ABC News, which just hired Martin Bashir, Terry Moran and Cynthia McFadden to replace Ted Koppel on Nightline:

The three will assume anchor duties Monday, Nov. 28, with Moran in Washington and McFadden and Bashir in New York. McFadden will continue to anchor and report for ABC News “Primetime,” where she has had a role since 1996, and Bashir, who joined ABC in 2004, will continue to report for the news magazine “20/20.”

The multi-anchor format has the potential to be very annoying — witness the new Newsnight with Aaron Brown AND Anderson Cooper. So Lehrer’s prediction might be born out. But right now, it looks like it’s going the other way.