GIBSON AND MUDD MAKE IT OFFICIAL

NEW YORK — Two expected network changes became official Thursday as Roger Mudd said he will be leaving NBC News to work in public TV, and Charles Gibson was named to succeed David Hartman as co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Mudd, 58, who sharply criticized NBC for canceling the low-rated “1986” newsmagazine series that he co-anchored, will be joining PBS’ “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” on March 1 as a special correspondent.

Saturday will be his last day at NBC. The veteran newsman, who joined NBC in 1980 after nearly two decades at CBS News, negotiated a settlement of his contract, which had not been due to expire until 1990.

Neither Mudd nor NBC would make public terms of the settlement. However, a knowledgeable source said that under the agreement Mudd would be receiving approximately $3 million. The newsman had been working under a segment of a long-term contract that would have paid him $1.2 million a year for four years.

Mudd said he had no regrets about having criticized NBC’s cancellation of “1986,” saying that “I spoke what I regarded as the truth. . . . “

Mudd also praised the staff and co-anchors of the PBS program he’ll be joining:

“I think they’ve got their priorities straight, in the right order, and I think they believe that the news comes before the numbers, that substance comes before stardom, and completeness and fullness come before flash.”

In addition to his new job on the PBS program, for which he will report and do occasional “television essays,” Mudd’s contract with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions calls for him to develop other programs and series.

Al Vecchione, president of the company, said Mudd’s pact is for one year, but he explained that that’s because all public television series are renewable each year. He said he expects that Mudd will be with the organization for a long time.

Vecchione declined to disclose Mudd’s salary, saying only that it is in “the normal bounds of public television.”

On the morning-show front, meanwhile, ABC said that Gibson, 43, who has been with the network’s news division since May, 1975, will join Joan Lunden as co-host of “Good Morning America” on Feb. 23. The show will be broadcast from Miami that week.

Lunden described her new partner as “incredibly bright” and as a person “I had an instant rapport with” when Gibson was filling in for Hartman.

Gibson had been considered the leading candidate for the job. Others who had been considered were Don Farmer of Cable News Network and Stone Phillips of ABC News’ “20/20.”

Hartman, a former actor who had hosted “Good Morning America” since it began 11 years ago, had said he wanted to leave the job. He will continue doing special reports for the show and other specials for prime time, ABC said.

ABC’s formal announcement of Gibson as Hartman’s successor came at a news conference here attended by Gibson, Lunden and the program’s new producer, Jack Reilly, formerly producer of the syndicated “Entertainment Tonight.”

“This has all the suspense of a Gary Hart announcement (that) he’s running for President,” Reilly joked as he joined his colleagues on the homey set of the program at ABC studios.

He also took the opportunity to needle Steve Friedman, producer of NBC’s rival “Today” show, which last year took the lead in morning ratings from “Good Morning America” and still has it.

(Last week’s Nielsen figures show “Today” getting a 5.6 rating, “Good Morning America” a 5 and CBS’ new, much-criticized “The Morning Show” a 2.9, down slightly from its first week on the air. Each ratings point represents 874,000 homes.)

Reilly noted that Friedman had been quoted as predicting that “Good Morning America” will easily fend off a challenge for No. 2 in the early-morning race from “The Morning Show.”

That, Reilly dryly observed, “was very astute of him.” However, he said, “we’re also going to be the winner in a three-way race.”

NBC’s announcement of Mudd’s exit was somewhat quieter than the ABC news conference held to herald Gibson’s arrival.

The Peacock network issued a short statement that said NBC News had “reached a mutually satisfactory contract agreement” with Mudd, who it said “has chosen to end his association with NBC News on Jan. 31, 1987.”

In the statement, NBC News President Lawrence Grossman said “we appreciate the outstanding work Roger has done for NBC,” expressed understanding for “his desire to take a new direction” and offered him “best wishes for continued success.”

Mudd, a strong-willed, at times testy journalist who also had had his differences with management while at CBS News, was asked in a phone interview if he thought the quality of the network news operations were going downhill.

For correspondents like him who worked in network journalism from the 1950s through the 1970s, he said, “I think network news is not so comfortable anymore.”

In the past five or six years, he said, there’s been a “new breed” of news executives “and I don’t think that most of the management regards what their reporters do as serious work that is essential for a democratic society.

“I think most of them (executives) look at the news more as a promotable commodity that helps in the ratings, but doesn’t necessarily help citizens understand things. I think they’re really more interested in a full-page ad that promotes the scoop than they are in the scoop itself.”