NEW YORK (AP) — Jon Banner is the last person standing.His counterparts on the CBS and NBC evening newscasts were replaced amid ratings troubles over the last few weeks. But Banner, the executive producer of ABC’s “World News” with Charles Gibson, not only survived but is thriving after a brutal two-year stretch.

“World News” beat NBC, the long-time ratings leader, four times in the last six weeks and won the February “sweeps” period. It may be an anomaly. Or it may be a sign that tastes are changing for the most tradition-bound of TV news programmes.

“It’s better than a lot of the things that have happened over the last couple of years,” said ABC News President David Westin. “It’s just nice to see a smile on everyone’s faces.”

Two years ago, when Banner was in his second year working with anchor Peter Jennings, this was precisely the competitive position ABC News executives imagined for themselves. They just didn’t know what they would have to go through to get there.

Spring of 2005 marked a watershed. Tom Brokaw, NBC’s veteran anchor, had stepped down months earlier. Dan Rather, a fixture at CBS for decades, had been forced out. ABC believed viewers would migrate to Jennings, the last of the venerable big three. The network pegged an ad campaign to his experience.

In a matter of weeks, the dream was in shambles.

Banner wonders, now, if he should have seen it coming. He had sensed something was wrong. Jennings’ inability to travel overseas after the deadly tsunami in the Indian Ocean was a warning sign even outsiders noticed. Could anything more have been done? What if the diagnosis came earlier?

Jennings announced in April 2005 that he had lung cancer, went off the air and never came back before his death in August. The team of Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff replaced him.

The pairing was “an interesting experiment that had a better chance than not of working,” Banner said. “But we never had a chance to find out.”

Just 28 days into their tenure, Woodruff was seriously hurt by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Woodruff was unconscious (36 days) for longer than he was anchor.

Then, Vargas became pregnant and stepped back, clearing the way for Gibson.

Banner’s job was to keep everything afloat.

“To come out of that and still be competitive is an enormous testament to his abilities to keep people focused and keep people enthusiastic and still give them time to grieve,” Gibson told The Associated Press.

Banner, 39 and prematurely balding, has the look and quiet manner of an accountant outside the office. At the “rim”, the desk in the ABC newsroom where he sits across from Gibson and directs preparation of each evening’s newscast, he is far more intense.

“It’s live television,” he said. “Sometimes things happen and things mess up. Sometimes voices get raised but they are always lowered very quickly.”

Gibson jokes that Banner “will have to give his adrenal glands to science because he is revved up all the time.”

In a business where producers are judged on creating a program and their ability to work with on-air talent, Banner has proven remarkably adaptable. He began producing Jennings’ broadcast, then had to shift gears to direct a two-person team, and had to change course again with Gibson.

With each change, he had to adapt to a new anchor’s strengths and incorporate them into a broadcast with room for just 22 minutes of news. For Vargas, it meant emphasising her interview skills. Now he plays up Gibson’s warmth and writing ability.

During most of the last two years, it wasn’t clear what the future of “World News” would hold. It fell to Banner to maintain the network’s competitiveness during longer-than-expected periods of uncertainty.

The attention paid to Katie Couric’s arrival at the “CBS Evening News” last year gave ABC News the advantage of a soft launch for Gibson, who took over late last spring. Couric’s first newscasts and self-conscious experiments were endlessly analysed for content and tone. Gibson and Banner had time to grow comfortable in what they were doing with far less scrutiny.

In Gibson, Banner has a genial anchor who commands authority.

They’ve had long talks about being less obsessed over what leads a broadcast and more concerned with the overall impression it leaves, whether a viewer feels it’s time well-spent.

The approach makes the newscast seem less like a drumbeat of bad news. NBC’s Brian Williams, although younger than Gibson and very funny off the set, appears more sombre on-screen. There’s some concern at NBC that this makes him less appealing to female viewers, who slightly favour Gibson.

The recent success of “World News” helps the news department look ahead in anticipation rather than look back in sadness.

Banner sums up: “We have subsequently learned that although Peter was immensely valuable in shaping the news organisation, that the brand and the value he gave to the brand over the years really sustains, which is really quite incredible when you think about it.”