HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 9/6/10 — David Westin announced Monday night that he is resigning as president of ABC News.

The news comes after a year that included anchor changes and severe staff cuts.

Thirteen years after he succeeded Roone Arledge, Westin told Bob Iger, chief executive of Disney, the network’s parent company, that he wanted to wrap up his tenure. Westin will stay on the job until year’s end to give Disney time to find a successor.

“I’ve always admired those few who know when it’s time to move on,” Westin said in a letter to the staff. “This is the right time for me.”

In a series of personnel decisions that tumbled like dominos, Westin named Diane Sawyer as the anchor of “World News”: installed George Stephanopoulos in her old job as co-host of “Good Morning America”; brought in Christiane Amanpour for the Sunday program “This Week”; sent Chris Cuomo from “GMA” to “20/20,” and put Bill Weir on “Nightline,” replacing Martin Bashir.
“Leading you has been a great privilege and a solemn responsibility–a responsibility that I tried to fulfill for over thirteen years by doing what I believed was best for this important news organization,” Westin told the staff, according to the Washington Post.
At the same time, he wrote, “there are some other things I want to do professionally–things that I cannot explore while fulfilling my responsibilities here.” Westin is said to be thinking of doing some writing and speaking; he had to kill a proposed op-ed piece on the Supreme Court after his advisers told him it was too opinionated for a network news leader.