Sometime in the next 48 hours, President-elect Barack Obama and Michelle Obama will sit down for an interview with Barbara Walters.

The interview will air as a one-hour prime time special Wednesday night at 10pmET/PT.

The interview will focus on the faltering economy, Obama's cabinet picks, the Obama family's move to Washington and if he were a tree what kind of tree he'd be (okay, maybe not that one.)

ABC's Nightline topped CBS' Late Show with David Letterman in Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo last week, beating the program each night. Year-to-year, Nightline is up 15% in Total Viewers and 7% in the demo.

Nightline topped both NBC's Tonight Show and CBS' Late Show in both categories for the first time since 1998 during the prior week. It declined in both categories after a strong election week.

Gail Shister
TVNewser Columnist

Like somebody else in Washington, "This Week's" George Stephanopoulos doesn't want his two young daughters on TV.

"They're not allowed to do interviews," he jokes, referring to six-year-old Elliott and three-year-old Harper. (Type A Elliott "is an intense little girl. She's fun to watch." Harper, a B, "is quite laid back." Guess which one takes after dad?)

When the Obama family sat down with "Access Hollywood's" Maria Menounos in July for its first - and only - interview, Stephanaopoulos was struck most by the reaction of the President-elect.

"I think he realized, as it was happening, that maybe he ought to pull back a little bit," he says. "He and his wife are really focused on protecting their daughters."

Ditto for Stephanopoulos and his wife, Ali Wentworth.

When one's kids are on camera, "There's an unreality to it that might not be healthy," he says. "I'm not sure what consequences would be, but I don't particularly want to test it."

Speaking of tests, ABC's "This Week" is a solid No. 2 in the Sunday-morning wars, ahead of Bob Schieffer's "Face the Nation" on CBS and behind NBC powerhouse "Meet the Press," with interim anchor Tom Brokaw.

Ironically, "This Week" can't seem to crack Washington, where it's behind "Fox News Sunday." (Nationally, however, "This Week" doubles Fox News' numbers.) A few weeks ago, "This Week" was No. 1 in every Top 10 market - except You Know Where.

Whattup?

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...that's the headline of a press release we just received from ABC's Nightline. Correspondent Jeffrey Kofman travels "to the remote villages of southern Ecuador with scientists who are studying this extraordinary group of people who are just three or four feet tall," says the release. Kofman reveals that throughout its existence, the community has yet to experience an instance of cancer or diabetes.

Kofman's report will air tomorrow night on Nightline with a preview airing on World News with Charles Gibson.

ABC News will get the first television interview with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the prostitute at the center of the Eliot Spitzer scandal. An ABC News insider confirms Diane Sawyer conducted the interview yesterday.

As Gawker's Hamilton Nolan first reported, the interview will air next Friday on 20/20.

"This is not the Eliot Spitzer story. This is the Ashley Dupre story," the ABC insider tells us.

The only public comments made by Dupre since the scandal broke in March has been a few sentences to the New York Times in the days after Spitzer resigned as Governor. The New York Post got an exclusive as well — but just pictures.

Interestingly this will be the continuation of Sawyer's previous reporting on prostitution in America. Within weeks of the Spitzer story breaking, ABC aired Sawyer's two-hour special, "Prostitution in America: Working Girls Speak," in which she spent time at the famous legal brothel, Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

Gawker's tipster reports ABC "paid a large 'consulting fee' and for 'archival footage' — the standard way interview subjects are paid by the networks."

All week we've written about the huge ratings put up due to the presidential election, from the morning to the evening, to the late evening, from Sunday morning to Sunday evening, from the cablers to the broadcast networks.

But what about the other news destination this election season, The View? TV Week's Vlada Gelman writes about The View's first place finish in Total Viewers last week among daytime programs — its first ever in the 12 year history of the show. The program averaged 4,670,000 Total Viewers.

The day after Election Day, November 5, the show had its most-watched telecast ever, with 6,170,000 Total Viewers.

Thanks to huge numbers on Election Night, ABC's Nightline beat NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno and CBS' Late Show with David Letterman in both Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo. It was the first time the program beat both shows (when they were in first-run programming) in both categories since the week of March 23, 1998.

On Tuesday, Nightline's average of 10,690,000 Total Viewers was the show's largest since April 21,1995, the day Timothy McVeigh was arrested. Its average of 5,120,000 in the demo was the largest since April 20,1999, the day of the Columbine shooting.

First on TVNewser: William Ayers has stayed largely silent during the nearly two years of election coverage, even as his name was mentioned in many forms.

But the Chicago activist who has been tied to President-elect Barack Obama is breaking his silence tomorrow when he appears on ABC's Good Morning America. Chris Cuomo conducts the live interview.

During the exclusive interview, Ayers will talk be asked about the re-issue of his 2001 memoir "Fugitive Days" and his life as a founder of the radical group the Weather Underground.

(image courtesy of Chicago Magazine)

The NYPD on the scene tells ABC's Bill Weir that by the time Pres.-Elect Obama went over the top at 11pmET the crowd approached 50-70,000 and stretched from 40th Street to 49th Street. Weir reported all night from the Crossroads of the World. CNN also had a viewing party at the north end of the square which was open to the public.

As expected, ABC News announced Jake Tapper as the new Senior White House correspondent.

Also named in the announcement today was Martha Raddatz as Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent and Jonathan Karl as Senior Congressional correspondent.

Tapper moves to the White House from covering the candidates on the campaign trail. Raddatz moves to the foreign affairs position after serving as White House correspondent since November 2005.

Karl has served as Senior National Security correspondent since January 2006.

Click continued to see the full release...

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