‘NIGHTWATCH’ NEWCOMER

Deborah Johnson, former executive producer of the now-defunct “NBC News Overnight,” will join CBS News’ late-hour “Nightwatch” as its executive producer on Oct. 27, a network spokeswoman says.

Johnson, now foreign producer for the “NBC Nightly News,” will succeed Vicki Zufian, who had been temporarily in charge of CBS’ two-hour program after the resignation in June of executive producer John Huddy. Huddy now is a film production consultant in Hollywood.

Johnson’s appointment, announced in New York on Wednesday, comes three weeks after seven former and current female staffers at “Nightwatch” filed a $14-million suit against CBS Inc. in Washington, where the program is taped each weekday.

They alleged in their petition that they had faced sexual harassment, discrimination and hostility while working on the program when Huddy produced it. Although named in the the suit, he is not a defendant in it. Both he and CBS have declined to comment on the suit.

“Nightwatch,” currently anchored on a rotating basis by Fred Graham and Terence Smith, is broadcast from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., then is rerun from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. each weekday. Charlie Rose, the program’s usual host, is anchoring the low-rated “CBS Morning News” that CBS plans to replace at the end of this year.