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SHOWBIZ: NEWSMAKERS & WORLD CELEBRITIES

NEW YORK (AP) -- ABC News appointed Elizabeth Vargas to replace Barbara Walters as co-host of the newsmagazine 20/20, and hired British celebrity interviewer Martin Bashir for the show. Vargas has been a frequent fill-in on various ABC News broadcasts and a reporter for its newsmagazine. She'll be teamed with John Stossel on 20/20, which retained its Friday time slot in the fall schedule announced by the network Tuesday. Walters was the show's original co-host since 1979, and will continue doing interview specials for the network. Bashir, no stranger to ABC audiences, will fill Walters' role in competition for the big celebrity interviews. His interview with Michael Jackson was seen by 27 million people in February 2003, and won the enmity of the star, who sold his version of his story to Fox. ABC has also shown other Bashir programs about the late Princess of Wales and an investigation into a scandal on the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. ABC's other newsmagazine will go back to the name Primetime Live and go back to its roots as a live program. "By broadcasting live, we guarantee a greater energy, immediacy and rapid response to breaking news," said Shelley Ross, the show's executive producer. That means tougher hours for hosts Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, who also anchor Good Morning America. So they'll be joined by a rotating team of Chris Cuomo, Cynthia McFadden and John Quinones as anchors, Ross said. ABC is also starting a weekend edition of Good Morning America in the fall. After it was abandoned several years ago in a cost-cutting move, ABC ceded weekend news territory to NBC and CBS, and was criticized for moving slowly on news stories that broke on the weekends. Bill Weir, a former sports reporter at the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles, was appointed host of the weekend Good Morning America. ABC will pair him with another host, but that person hasn't been named yet.

Photo: Emmy Award-nominee Rob Lowe, left, and Emmy Award-winner Joe Pantoliano, share a scene in Las Vegas in "Dr. Vegas," (CQ). (AP /Cliff Lipson,CBS)

NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS is offering Rob Lowe as a doctor, Jason Alexander as a sportswriter and John Goodman as a family patriarch in new series that will debut this fall. The network will also set up a battle of the franchises, pitting its spinoff series CSI: NY against NBC's Law & Order on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. CBS, the most popular network this season, will introduce three new dramas and two comedies next season, it announced Wednesday. Alexander will be the latest Seinfeld alum to try to succeed in a new comedy. In Listen Up, he'll play a character based on Washington Post sportswriter Tony Kornheiser. The show was placed on CBS's successful Monday night comedy lineup. Lowe, who failed last year as a lawyer in NBC's short-lived The Lyon's Den, will play a doctor at a Las Vegas casino in Dr. Vegas. "It's a traditional medical show during the day and during the night, he sleeps with chorus girls and gambles," said CBS chairman Leslie Moonves. "What could go wrong with that?" In Center of the Universe, Goodman plays a security company owner with Ed Asner portraying his father, Olympia Dukakis his mother and Jean Smart his wife. CBS is cancelling the dramas Hack, The District and The Guardian. The comedy, Yes, Dear is off the schedule, but CBS has ordered 13 episodes for a midseason replacement. After trying, with limited success, to build an audience with dramas on Saturday nights, CBS will save money on that night by programming the newsmagazine 48 Hours Mysteries, the reality show The Amazing Race and reruns of one of the CSI shows. With 60 Minutes founder Don Hewitt stepping down, CBS is stripping the II from the Wednesday spinoff, 60 Minutes II. Besides CSI: NY, the other new series will be Clubhouse, a feel-good drama about a 16-year-old boy who becomes a batboy for the mythical New York Empires.-David Bauer.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sarah Jessica Parker thinks her marriage to Matthew Broderick works because she does everything for him, including shopping, packing and hailing taxis. "I take care of him," Parker tells Charlie Rose in an interview to air Wednesday night on CBS's 60 Minutes II. Excerpts were released in advance. "I pack for him, I shop for him, I get his groceries. He's taken care of. That's who Matthew is -- people take care of him. It's practically involuntary." Parker, who starred in HBO's Sex and the City, and Broderick, who starred with Nathan Lane in the hit Broadway show The Producers, were married in 1997. They have an 18-month-old son, James. When asked what she would change about her husband, Parker replied: "He walks too slowly. I walk really quickly. He never hails the cab -- never. I've been doing it forever, so I guess he just thinks, 'Well, she does it so well.'"

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