Information about Good Morning America

Good Morning America
Good Morning America title card used since September 5, 2006.
Created by	Donald L. Perris William F. Baker
Starring	Diane Sawyer (1999–present) Robin Roberts (2002–present) Sam Champion (2006–present) Chris Cuomo (2006–present)
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	180 minutes (three hours) (including commercials, and local news/weather cut-ins [on some affiliates, and an hour available only on ABC News Now])
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 720p (HDTV)
Original run	November 1, 1975 – Present

Good Morning America is a weekday morning news show that is broadcast on the ABC television network. The show was adapted from The Morning Exchange, a morning show created by and airing on the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, and was launched nationally as Good Morning America in 1975.

The show features news, talk, weather, and special interest stories. It is produced live from Times Square Studios in New York City and fed to all network affiliates. It was the first network morning news program to broadcast in HDTV (rival Today began broadcasting in HDTV beginning on September 13, 2006). The program is currently hosted by Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts. Longtime anchor Charles Gibson left the program on June 28, 2006 to become the lead anchor at ABC World News. When major events happen in Washington or any where else in the world, during the morning hours, then the show is often broadcast from Washington, D.C. or where ever the place is.

History

Early years: 1975

In January 1975, ABC launched AM America in an attempt to compete with the The Today Show on NBC, hosted by Jim Hartz and Barbara Walters. ABC's show was hosted by Bill Beutel and Stephanie Edwards, with Peter Jennings reading the news. The show could not find an audience against The Today Show, so ABC started to look for a new approach. While looking around, they found that one of their affiliates, WEWS in Cleveland, Ohio, was not broadcasting A.M. America but instead was airing a locally produced show called The Morning Exchange.

Unlike A.M. America and The Today Show, The Morning Exchange featured an easygoing and less dramatic approach by offering news and weather updates only at the top and bottom of every hour and used the rest of the time to discuss general-interest/entertainment topics. The Morning Exchange also established a group of regular guests who were experts in certain fields such as health, entertainment, consumer affairs, travel, etc. Also unlike both the NBC and ABC shows, The Morning Exchange was not broadcast from a newsroom set but instead one that resembled a suburban living room. The show's creators, Donald L. Perris and William F. Baker, felt the living room set would make viewers feel more comfortable. The result of all of this was ratings of nearly 70% for The Morning Exchange.

ABC took an episode of The Morning Exchange and used it as a pilot episode. After rave reviews for the pilot, the format replaced A.M. America in November 1975 as Good Morning America. Good Morning America's first host was David Hartman, featuring Nancy Dussault as his co-host. Dussault was replaced in 1977 by Sandy Hill.

1976-1980

Good Morning America ratings climbed slowly but steadily throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s while The Today Show experienced a slight slump in viewership, especially with Barbara Walters' decision to leave NBC for a job at ABC. On August 29, 1976, Tom Brokaw began anchoring The Today Show while a search was made for a female co-host. Within a year, The Today Show managed to beat back the Good Morning America ratings threat with Brokaw and new co-host Jane Pauley, featuring art and entertainment contributor Gene Shalit.

1980s

Good Morning America continued to threaten The Today Show into the 1980s, especially after Brokaw left Today to become NBC Nightly News co-anchor with Roger Mudd for two years before being named sole anchor. For the first time, Good Morning America became the highest rated morning news program in the United States as The Today Show fell to second place.

Format evolves

In the beginning of Good Morning America, it was a talk program with a main host, David Hartman, who was joined by a sidekick co-host. Nancy Dussault and Sandy Hill were scripted as less than equal hosts. In 1980, Hill left Good Morning America and was replaced by Joan Lunden, an anchor for WABC in New York. Hartman and Lunden led the show through several seasons of success. Lunden's popularity with viewers made the format to two equal co-anchors become necessary. David Hartman was no longer the main host of the program. The partnership ended in February 1987 as Hartman retired.

After Hartman's retirement, Lunden was paired with Charles Gibson and ratings skyrocketed for Good Morning America. They became the most popular news partnership on television in the late 1980s and early 1990s and won the ratings battle against NBC's The Today Show.

CBS joins the fray

In the 1970s and 1980s, the CBS television network, aired only shared by Good Morning America and The Today Show.

CBS became more competitive in the morning news talk show ratings battle, and later launched CBS Morning, using the same format used on Good Morning America and The Today Show. It was hosted by Charles Kuralt and Diane Sawyer. In 1983, CBS This Morning beat The Today Show and took the second place spot after Good Morning America.

1990-1998

Good Morning America sailed into the 1990s with its overwhelming ratings success. Joan Lunden and Charles Gibson were a hard couple to beat. But Good Morning America would stumble from its top spot in late 1995. Lunden began to discuss working less, and mentioned to network execs that the morning schedule is the hardest in the business. ABC executives promised Lunden a prime time show, Behind Closed Doors, would be on the network schedule. In 1997, Lunden decided to step down after 17 years on the show and was replaced by Lisa McRee. The show was almost killed^[1] when Gibson, too, left the show to make way for Kevin Newman in 1998. With McRee and Newman at the helms of Good Morning America, long time viewers switched to The Today Show, whose ratings skyrocketed and have remained at the top spot since the week of December 11, 1995.

1999-2006

In 1999, ABC became desperate to revive Good Morning America, which viewers disfavored. It negotiated Gibson's return, teaming him up with Diane Sawyer. The team was meant to be temporary until ABC could find permanent replacements. However, Good Morning America ratings once again increased and battled The Today Show for viewership, though it has not yet proclaimed a victory in weekly viewership over The Today Show. ABC stuck with the Gibson and Sawyer team as anchors of Good Morning America for 7 1/2 years. Until March 18, 2002, the news was anchored by Antonio Mora. When he left to anchor WBBM-TV in Chicago, Robin Roberts, a former ESPN anchor, replaced Mora.

In May 2005, ABC announced that Roberts, the show's news anchor, would be promoted to co-anchor. She had been regularly filling in for Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson up until then.

As of 2005, Good Morning America has still not prevailed over The Today Show in the ratings, though it has had a few one-show victories on the day after Pope John Paul II's funeral, and then a Mariah Carey concert in 2005. Good Morning America has won in timeslots in large markets like New York, which might have been an indication that the audience was migrating from The Today Show. Recently, however, the viewership gap between Today and GMA has widened again.

On November 3, 2005, GMA celebrated its 30th birthday with recaps to 1975 and by decorating Times Square. Former co-hosts David Hartman and Joan Lunden, along with former meteorologist Spencer Christian were among the guests of honor. Hartman signed off the show that day with his trademark close "From all of us, make it a good day." On that day Good Morning America became the first morning news show to broadcast in HDTV.



On December 2, 2005, weatherman Tony Perkins left Good Morning America, where he has been the weather personality since 1999. The last ten minutes of the day's show was dedicated to Perkins, where he gave thanks to one of the show's producers and a heartfelt goodbye to the three anchors, Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer, and Robin Roberts. Perkins announced that he was going to go home to his family and would be living in Washington, D.C., where he would go back to WTTG-TV, where he was previously a weather personality. He affectionately said to his young child on the air, "Connor, if you're watching, daddy's comin' home." Perkins was replaced by former Chicago WGN-TV morning sports anchor Mike Barz.

Charles Gibson ended his run on Good Morning America on June 28, 2006. The program was dedicated to Gibson's 19 years as anchor on GMA and celebrated his move to the anchor chair at WNT. Gibson ended his tenure by stating, "For 19 years, my mornings have been not just good — they've been great."^[2]

2006-current

U.S. morning television shows currently on air at 7am ET   [ edit ]
ABC	Good Morning America
BBC America	World News Today
CBS	The Early Show
CNBC	Squawk Box
CNN	American Morning
FNC	Fox & Friends
HLN	Robin & Company
MSNBC	Morning Joe
NBC	Today
Syndication	The Daily Buzz
Telemundo	Cada Da
Univision	Despierta Amrica

There is speculation that Diane Sawyer will leave her seat at Good Morning America when her contract expires in 2007 due to the fact that she was coveting the World News Tonight anchor job which was given to Gibson. In August 2006, Chris Cuomo was named news anchor. He has since continued his anchoring duties on ABC's Primetime as well as ABC News Senior Legal Correspondent. Meanwhile, Sam Champion was named GMA's new weather anchor as well as ABC News weather editor. Both Cuomo and Champion began their respective duties on the program September 5, 2006, when GMA instituted a new graphics package, and new news area for Cuomo to report the news. Also, beginning on September 13, 2006, GMA introduced a new logo this time with gold font on a blue background. This logo bore a resemblance to the initial GMA logo that was used up to early 1987.

On June 29, 2007, movie critic for the show, Joel Siegel died at age 63 after a battle of cancer. July 9 was the day in remembrance of Joel, the whole broadcast was of his death, former hosts David Hartman, Sandy Hill, Joan Lunden, Kevin Newman, Spencer Christian, Tony Perkins, Charles Gibson, all came together in remembrance.

Jim Murphy, GMA's executive producer, said when not in the studio, they send Diane Sawyer traveling the world, with stops in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. They send Chris Cuomo out on breaking news stories. They send Robin Roberts out on domestic news and feature stories. And Sam Champion goes out for every major weather event.

In 2007 GMA won the first Outstanding Morning Programming Emmy Award with the Today Show.

On July 31, 2007, co-anchor Robin Roberts announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Good Morning America Radio

In January 2006, Good Morning America launched a radio edition of the program on XM Radio's Take Five. The show would incorporate features and news from the television edition as well as allow fans to discuss these topics. The radio edition of the show is hosted by Hilarie Barksy and airs Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to Noon Eastern Time.

Good Morning America Now

On September 4, 2007, Good Morning America extended their broadcast from 2 hours to 3 hours. The 3rd hour can only be seen on their 24 hour channel ABC News Now. The program is mainly hosted by Chris Cuomo and includes the main GMA anchors as well as GMA correspondents Claire Shipman, Juju Chang, Deborah Roberts, Elizabeth Vargas, Kate Snow, Marysol Castro, Ron Claiborne and Bianna Golodryga.

Hosts/Anchors

As of 2007

• Diane Sawyer, Anchor (1999-Present)
• Robin Roberts, Anchor (2005-Present), News Anchor (2002-2005)
• Chris Cuomo, News Anchor (2006-Present)
• Sam Champion, Weather Anchor (2006-Present)
• Kate Snow, Weekend Anchor (2006-present)
• Bill Weir, Weekend Anchor (2006-present)
• Ron Claiborne, Weekend News Anchor
• Marysol Castro, Weekend Weather Anchor

Past hosts

• David Hartman (1975-1987)
• Nancy Dussault (1975-1977)
• Sandy Hill (1977-1980)
• Joan Lunden (1980-1997)
• Charles Gibson (1987-1998; 1999-2006)
• Lisa McRee (1997-1999)
• Kevin Newman (1998-1999)

Contributors

• Mike Barz (2005-2006), correspondent/weatherman
• Spencer Christian (1986-1998), weatherman
• Tony Perkins (1999-2005), weatherman
• Don Dahler (as of 2006)
• Bianna Golodryga (as of 2007)
• Ron Hazelton (as of 2006)
• Mellody Hobson (as of 2006), financial contributor
• Gregory Hunter (as of 2006)
• Rebecca Kolls (as of 2006)
• Tory Johnson (as of 2007), workplace contributor
• Timothy Johnson (as of 2006), medical editor
• Emeril Lagasse (as of 2006), food contributor
• Sara Moulton (as of 2006), food contributor
• David Muir (as of 2006), correspondent
• Ann Pleshette Murphy (as of 2006)
• John J. Nance (as of 2006)
• Claire Shipman (as of 2006), senior national correspondent
• Joel Siegel (1981-2007), film critic
• Wolfgang Puck (as of 2006), food contributor
• Martha Raddatz (as of 2006)
• George Stephanopoulos (1997-2002), political analyst, host of This Week, and chief Washington correspondent)
• Bob Woodruff (as of 2006), correspondent and ABC News anchor
• Hilarie Barksy (Radio Edition - as of 2006)
• Glenn Beck (as of 2007)

International broadcasts

In Australia, the Nine Network and regional affiliates WIN and NBN air Good Morning America Tuesdays through Saturdays from 4:30am. The program is condensed into a 90-minute format. A national weather map of Australia is during cut-aways to local affiliates for weather information. GMA airs at the same time as the NBC Today on the Seven Network and Network Ten's CBS Early Show. It is unchallenged, ratings wise, in some regional areas where other affiliates preempt their networks' US breakfast programs with paid programming.

See also

• ABC News
• Good Morning America Weekend Edition
• Today
• The Early Show
• Breakfast television

References

External links

• Official Website
• Good Morning America Viewers Blog
• Good Morning America Summer Concert Schedule

•  • [ e] Co-Anchors of Good Morning America
Hartman • Dussault • Hill • Lunden • McRee • Newman • Sawyer • Gibson • Roberts