Whit Johnson, Janai Norman and Gio Benitez hold important jobs at ABC News, tasked with taking the unit’s flagship program, “Good Morning America,” into the weekend-news fray.
Now they each will take on another pressing task — boosting ABC News in the streaming wars.
The Disney journalism unit’s live-streaming outlet ABC News Live will on Saturday expand its programming on weekends, dispatching each member of the trio to take on streaming duties during weekend hours after 10 a.m. ET on Saturdays and Sundays. The group will retain their assignments on the “GMA” weekend program. They join DeMarco Morgan, co-anchor of the afternoon program “GMA3, ” who recently began anchoring weekend morning slots on ABC News Live. All four will rotate duties for programming that is part of “ABC News Live Weekend.”
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“It’s our strategy to have all of our stars on ABC News Live, and it’s something that has already been happening,” says Seni Tienabeso, executive director of ABC News Live, during an interview. “We have the most-watched anchors already playing,” he says, noting that David Muir has been anchoring a 9 p.m. hour on ABC News Live during this week’s coverage of the Republican National Convention, just before continuing his duties when the program has gone live on the ABC broadcast network at 10 p.m.
The push into weekends is one of ABC News’ bigger digital maneuvers since being placed under the aegis of veteran Disney executive Debra OConnell, who was named in February to lead a combined unit of Disney’s local stations and national newsgathering operations.
While all the mainstream TV-news operations field streaming outlets now, much of the focus has been on building a weekday programming grid. The schedule at NBC News Now, for example, features weekday programs led by Hallie Jackson, Tom Llamas and Savannah Sellers and Joe Fryer. CBS News 24/7 offers a bespoke evening-news program anchored by John Dickerson. Many weekend hours, however, are not always filled with live programming.
“We are one of the first in this space to go into these weekend hours as robustly in this manner,” says Karin Gilford, senior vice president of digital media, for Disney Entertainment’s News Group and Networks. The goal, she says, is to “bring our top-line talent into the streaming area and get in front of people with more hours of the week.”
ABC News has for some years streamed a regular evening program anchored by Linsey Davis, and expanded its streaming programming across a Monday to Friday schedule. In recent years, however, much of its work in streaming overall has seemed to come from creating special programming for Hulu and other Disney venues, sometimes in conjunction with anchors such as George Stephanopoulos or Robin Roberts. Some of this may have been spurred by success ABC News has seen from two-hour “20/20” broadcasts that prove popular with Hulu subscribers.
Executives hope viewers won’t see a distinction between linear and streaming news programs, says Tienabeso, noting that ABC News expects over time to utilize more of the anchors and correspondents from linear programming in broadband efforts.
Weekend programming on ABC News Live will also feature “GMA Life,” a weekly roundup of top lifestyle content from “Good Morning America,” featuring exclusive celebrity content, discounts from the popular segment “Deals & Steals” and interviews with authors of anticipated books.
