wabceyewitness

Canceling LIVE would mean ABC forcing WABC-TV to end a profitable local production and/or Disney telling their distribution arm to stop making money by syndicating it to dozens of non-ABC station group affiliates and then telling all of those local stations to give their lucrative 9am local hour back to the network in exchange for a midday hour or a lot of money. Oh, and the high ratings and profits that are generated from LIVE would probably have to nosedive first. So.. yeah, Sam Rubin and “the insiders” can keep speculating...

Michael doesn’t work Mondays during football season due to hosting FOX NFL Sunday in LA the prior day. I read a recent article saying he’s now working Mondays at ABC for GMA Day, but I guess not for the mothership. I like the addition of Whit Johnson and he seems to be on the fast track to other things at ABC. He’s already filled in a few times on WNT and on the weekday editions of GMA.

Seemed like a second hour of “Live” with some elements of the 8am hour GMA mixed in. Nothing unique, but also not terrible. I will say Michael Strahan is in his element and does a great job on GMA Day, as opposed to when ABC News sticks him into the middle of hard news situations.

Michael Strahan interviewing one of the Jacksonville shooting survivors at the top of this morning’s broadcast and he leads off with the hard hitting question: “How are you feeling?” Someone please send this man to an intro to journalism class and then let him back on America’s most watched morning newscast.

Why they used Shep certainly is the big question, especially when other FOX5 talent appeared on the broadcast just fine. One thought I had: Is it possible Shep and that studio were on standby for breaking news that night? If so, perhaps the deal was we’ll produce the show for you tonight, but we need our team and anchor in place in case we have to quickly dump out of local and break in on FNC or on the broadcast network? Just a thought.

Back to normal this morning.

Unsure, but it was a ground floor, street side studio. And, as of 5 p.m. today they are back at East 67th Street with their aging set, poor graphics, and awful lighting.

Here is the latest modified open, as described in the previous post, from Newscast Studio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=sPeB20WEvZ0;t=9

9am: GDNY signs off an hour early with the 9am hour replaced so far with a re-airing of the “Rosanna Scotto & Jennifer Lopez: What Happens In Vegas” special. Presumably, the space they were using was only available until 9am and/or it didn’t make sense to attempt the third hour with the limited space they have. I will say the temporary studio, despite its limitations, and localized FOX News graphics were a HUGE upgrade from a regular FOX5 broadcast. It’s a shame this is only temporary.

8:30am: Introducing Anthony Scaramucci who is live in the temporary studio (to talk recent Trump news), Scaramucci says the East 67th St. studio is “from the King Kong era of New York” and at least this studio “is modern”. He cuts himself off, saying, “sorry, am I being too critical?” Lori’s response: “No, you’re telling the truth.”

Ha — one of the first things Rosanna and Lori said this morning was that they wanted to stay at FNC HQ. By the way, they’re broadcasting from a tiny temporary set with a large TV screen as the backdrop (with stationary GDNY/FOX 5 logo) in what looks like a lobby or small streetside production area of FNC headquarters. There’s some shots where you can see people waking by. One other thing to note: the “computer meltdown” seems to stem from the internet, at least according to Lori,who said a massive internet outage at their East 67th Street studios caused them to temporarily relocate.

Another modified open today. This time, a very quick four-note ABC News/Good Morning America ID and title card then cutting straight to the anchors live in studio and George greeting viewers with, “Good Morning, America.” Then each of the three anchors introduced one headline while the main theme plays in the background. From there, they dive right into the top story. There was no taped announcer intro or traditional opening saying “this is GMA...” with the zooming in on the studio exterior. Looks like they’re experimenting with things this week.

Shep signed off after 30 minutes of, what he called, "a special edition of the FOX 5 News at Ten". He said if the engineers can get the computers working again at WNYW then Steve and Dari would be anchoring tomorrow night.... wonder if things will be back to normal for GDNY?

I'm watching - it's actually refreshing compared to FOX5's regular 10pm broadcast and great to see Shepard Smith anchoring, though I wonder why the local anchors aren't able to anchor from FOX News HQ..?

This morning's open (on the live east coast feed, at least) was different - it opened right away with the "live from times square..." anchor intro, and then George, Paula (in for Robin) and Michael went through the headlines for the day. You could also audibly hear someone - either in the control room or studio - right at the top of the anchor into say "we're on!".. Wonder if the headlines intro got messed up just before air and they had to dump it or if they were experimenting?

Had the same thought when watching. It maybe warranted a few sound bites from her in a follow up packaged report about the incident, but not an in studio interview. Poor legal advice or not following legal advice?

Agreed, 100%. I loved Michael on “Live” and thought he was great when he was part time on Good Morning America. I saw the interview, too. Pretty awful. I’ve also seen other broadcasts where they have him interviewing the former NYPD commissioner about counter terrorism and it’s a struggle to watch. If they want Strahan to be part of the cast, Good Morning America should’ve went back to a winning ensemble model similar to what they had in 2012/2013 with Robin, George, Josh, Sam, and Lara. The current version could be Robin, George, Amy Robach, Ginger Zee, and Michael Strahan.

Hopefully they’ll slowly shift Strahan off the main 7am hour.

Still unclear when she will be back on the 5pm, but I was told it could be up to a year from when the initial injury occurred.

Shirleen is also reporting for WTVD/ABC11 in Raleigh, NC. I guess the east coast O&Os are pooling her rather than relying on ABC NewsOne.

Camille Edwards is officially gone from WABC. She emailed her “resignation” note to staff on Monday. https://pagesix.com/2018/03/19/wabc-boss-camille-edwards-officially-resigns-after-scandal/ http://www.adweek.com/tvspy/camille-edwards-is-out-as-wabc-news-director/201971

Agreed... but somewhere there’s a consultant telling them leave the anchor in his/her usual seat, the viewers will be confused if they’re sitting elsewhere...

I hope that’s the case! I will say he’s good at the 8am hour when it’s lighter and he can play off the audience and he’s also good at lifestyle/sports/celebrity interviews. But at 7am, sorry, I don’t want to see Michael Strahan interviewing the former NYPD commissioner about a terrorist incident or talking about Washington politics and California mudslides.

That should be the trio that opens the show every morning.

Certainly a bit unconventional to have WNT on the red carpet — prob a better fit to have Good Morning America broadcast from there — but, others have said, it’s no different from NBC having its flagship newscast originate from the Olympics, Super Bowls, etc. I did watch Sunday’s broadcast. There was a story about the Oscars pegged to the #MeToo movement and some mentions of potential historic wins that could happen by people of color and women — noteworthy news, in my opinion. Everything else was a standard broadcast just not out the the New York studio... and it gave a natural flow to ABC’s Oscar coverage which started earlier in the day.