wabceyewitness

Lori was offered a contract renewal at WABC at a lower salary. That, and some unsettling conversations between her and the GM at the time, made her request and receive an early release from her contract. No. Jeff Smith briefly mentioned that Bill was no longer with the station in response to a question on a Facebook Live.

WABC dumped the last six minutes of their morning show the day she signed off from EWN to announce she was leaving, air a package about her and have her back at the desk to say farewell live... and the network gave her a shout out about an hour later on Good Morning America.

If this awful “rebrand” of the ABC logo and Circle 7 co-logos is forced on stations, will they also change the signage inside and outside the WABC studios that are connected to ABC HQ? And what about all the O&Os and affiliates with signage on their sets and buildings?

What a waste of time and money ... and what horrible Circle 7 co-logos they are forcing on their station group and affiliates. Hopefully this leaked branding kit is just a draft and not the final mandate for stations.

Well that day arrived sooner than we all thought. NBC’s TODAY has their anchors back to normal seating this morning. Let’s see how quickly the other networks and local stations can do it. Some of it will depend on readjusting the technical set up of the last 14 months; most of it will have to do with who’s vaccinated at each station and network.

The Gayle King connection didn’t hurt but, ultimately, it was CBS outbidding ABC and NBC and being willing to pay the most for the rights to the Harpo-produced special. I’m glad CBS This Morning is gaining some exposure. The better the competition is for GMA and Today, the more each show will fine tune and improve.

Congrats to Chad! Great to see a veteran of the station, and someone with a news background, reach the top spot.

The modified desk has made its first weekday appearance.

Nothing on the set matches. Even their promo department hates the new set — all the promos use footage from the previous set.

More from Variety on Tom Llamas going to NBC: https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/tom-llanas-nbc-news-abc-news-tv-1234892905/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I suggested replacing Strahan just as a possibility, but 100% agree there are many more better fits already on the ABC bench (Amy Robach, TJ Holmes, Whit Johnson) that deserve Strahan’s seat. I do wonder what he’ll be doing at NBC News. He was with NBC for 14 years — his entire career — prior to moving to ABC in 2014, so an offer to return already has the “homecoming” incentive. Maybe he’ll be part of MSNBC with some airtime on NBC as well.

A loss for ABC if it’s true ... but did anyone at ABC really think they’d have a shot at taking David Muir’s WNT seat anytime soon given his relatively young age and high ratings? The seat is his for the next 5-10 years. Wish they could offer Tom a spot on Good Morning America, replacing Michael Strahan, or add him as a third anchor or replacement for Muir on 20/20. Lindsey Davis should’ve been fired after staging a crime scene live shot a few years ago. Unfortunately her producer was thrown under the bus for something she was obviously complicit with.

Agreed that the first 45 mins of GMA is still pretty good, from a news perspective. George is sharp with his news analysis and his interviews with political newsmakers. If what you’re looking for is feel good/celebrity soft news, the 8am hour (especially during normal times) is right up your alley. With Michael Strahan, I just don’t understand the logic of having him pretend to be a hard news journalist during the 7am hour. At the very least, he should be removed from the top of the show. Amy Robach, TJ Holmes and Cecilia Vega would be better fits. And I think we are all on the same page with the set — it really needs to go.

Back to the regular desk this morning.

I don’t think they suddenly have an issue showing legs. They still do it later in the show. Wonder if the change is related to something else happening. Hopefully it is short-lived.

It looks like a hand me down from a local news department. The current Good Morning America set was a disaster from day one. It just keeps getting worse.

glad to see The 10 o’clock news branding back. another station that went back to previous branding is WLS. After 17 years as “ABC7 News”, they brought back “Eyewitness News”.

I would think the station’s executive team would be the ones to determine what the station’s holiday promo is all about, not you. Traditions are nice, but they can also evolve. Doing something one way just because it’s always been done that way is the worst way to do anything. Hoping your holidays are happier than The Grinch that appeared in a previous year’s WNBC holiday promo.

It isn’t the decorations, it’s the set that still looks atrocious and clashes with everything. “This Week” has been using the second floor/GMA3 level of the Times Square studio and looks great. GMA should just move there and rebuild the previous GMA set.

because of the reason already posted previously. Ratings are measured in 15 minute increments. If they break within the first 15 minutes, they risk losing viewers and risk a lower rating average... which means less money to pay the bills.

I know she has joined them before in studio for the weekend weather, and they have also had other O&O meteorologists come to New York to fill in. This is the first time I’ve noticed that they had weather done out of state, from another station, with Brittany broadcasting from WTVD in Raleigh, NC.

here is a link to the special report... looks like their automated system briefly interrupted their local special report with the network special report before someone at local switched back to the EWN report.

Kudos to Lee Goldberg, who was in tonight, and cut into primetime programming for an extended special report on the multiple tornado warnings affecting the tri-state area. He stayed on the air until the warnings expired with explanations of what we were seeing on the live radar, showed the exact neighborhoods and towns being hit the hardest and gave advice on where to go to seek shelter.

Lori and Rosanna make a great combo and I believe ratings have actually gone up with Lori there... but ratings are also down for the network morning shows compared to a few years ago so that might be helping GDNY in the local ratings race. Either way, “Good Day New York” has the rare distinction these days of being one of the few local news programs that households in the tri-state can identify by name and by anchors. Unless the evening slots are something Lori really wants, I would hate to see her lost in those time periods. FOX5’s evening newscasts are an after thought at this point. Even the once mighty 10pm news — appointment viewing each night when it was the “The Ten O’Clock News” with John Roland and Rosanna Scotto — is no longer a household brand.

When it happened earlier this month, seems like they added in an extra story later in the broadcast and some additional network promos. The first block ended earlier than usual but the newscast itself ended around its usual time with the cold close.