Drama Between Two ABC News Anchors
It’s been a while since there was a news anchor squabble that made headlines and that was what we got this past week when it was revealed that Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos was unhappy that he was being sidelined as the main go-to person when breaking news occurs with the role being handed over to evening news anchor David Muir.
Typically, anchor squabbles are reserved for the tabloid pages but what makes this one different is that it also involved Disney's chairman of general entertainment content, Peter Rice, and Disney’s executive chairman, Bob Iger.
Stephanopoulos and Muir are both important to ABC News with Stephanopulous bringing in the ratings in the mornings as well as on election nights and Muir bringing in the ratings in the evenings.
However, there was bad blood between the two.
Each of them felt rightly justified to be ABC News’ go-to anchor during breaking news and special events, but the news division for the past seven years went with Stephanopulous setting up him as its “chief anchor.”
Former ABC News president, James Goldston, felt that the role should now go to Muir whose World News Tonight was now the top news show amongst the three evening newscasts, and in keeping with tradition, the coveted “chief anchor” role is usually reserved for the news network’s evening anchor.
Stephanopoulos got wind of the impending changes and took his complaints up the food chain to Iger, who along with Rice did not like the fact that there was a huge anchor feud brewing within their news division.
Fearing that Stephanopolous would bolt to another network the two executives flew from their base in Los Angeles to New York to mediate and smooth things over.
As a result of their involvement, there will be no “chief anchor” role anymore, but Muir will still lead breaking news and special events for ABC News. Stephanopolous will handle those responsibilities during the morning hours before and after Good Morning America.
In addition to that, Stephanopoulos received a contract extension as well as a pay raise, he will also be leading a new program on politics for Hulu and will be producing four-hour-long specials for primetime.
Stephanopolous along with his wife, Ali Wentworth, will also get a production company where any projects they commission will be featured across the Disney empire.
Hopefully, the anchors are happy with the piece of the pie that they received and it will be interesting to see whether they can maintain this truce.
(CNN, Variety)
RECAP
Shannon Sharpe’s Contract Is Up This Summer — Will He Get Paid?
Skip Bayless just received a huge contract extension with Fox Sports and now all eyes turn to his Undisputed co-host Shannon Sharpe, whose contract will be up this summer. Sharpe makes $3 million per year for his work on the morning show, which is way less than what Fox Sports is paying Bayless. Sharpe’s banter and his antics have made the show very popular particularly online. Sharpe and Bayless may share equal billing when it comes to the show name, but from a pay standpoint there is a huge disparity and it will be interesting to see if Fox Sports corrects that. (New York Post, Front Office Sports & Ryan Glasspiegel/Twitter)
Comcast To Sell Its Hulu Stake To Disney
Despite a 33% ownership in Hulu, Comcast does not see any long-term involvement in the streaming service and is looking to sell its stake to majority owner Disney in 2024. Comcast is contractually obligated to put content from its broadcast service NBC on Hulu and this doesn’t sit well with the media conglomerate considering it has its own streaming service in Peacock. By selling its Hulu stake Comcast is looking to make at least $5.8 billion. (Deadline and Dylan Byers/Twitter)
Fox News’ Job Is To Be The ‘Loyal Opposition’ To The Biden Administration
It has been an open secret for many years but to hear it being said in the open is still somewhat jarring as Fox Corp’s CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, publically declared, this past week, that Fox News’ role is not that of an objective news network or “fair and balanced” as it used to describe itself back in the day, but instead it will be the “loyal opposition” mouthpiece during the Biden presidency. Murdoch made these comments after claiming MSNBC played a similar role during the Trump Administration — MSNBC pushed back against saying that was not its role. Fox News has been aggressively embracing this new stance as it has added more opinion programming to its lineup in the last few months. (MediaPost)
QUICK RECAP
Irv Cross a former NFL player and the first Black sports analyst passed away. (New York Daily News)
TV executive and The NFL Today’s first producer Mike Pearl has died. (Sports Broadcast Journal)
Ratings: CNN #1 in adults 25-54. (CNN Press Room)
Ratings: Fox News is back on top in primetime. (TVNewser)
Ratings: MSNBC #1 cable channel in February. (NBCUniversal Media Village)
Fox Sports retains Skip Bayless with a four-year, $32 million contract. (New York Post)
Kevin Mayer becomes chairman of DAZN. (Front Office Sports)
Kayleigh McEnany joins Fox News. (Yashar Ali/Twitter)
ESPN’s Rice Davis signs a must-year deal with the network. (ESPN Press Room)
Averi Harper named deputy political director at ABC News. (ABC News Public Relations)
Catherine Kim promoted to SVP of global digital news at NBC News. (TVNewser)
Former Italian soccer star Alessandro Del Piero joins ESPN as a soccer studio analyst. (ESPN Press Room)
Facebook explains why it did not bid for NFL games this time around. (Sportico)
The demise of NBCSN is for the benefit of USA Network. (Bloomberg)
Streaming wars could disrupt the TV ad market. (Variety)
Paramount Plus is finally here, thanks to CBS All Access. (The Ringer)
Turner Sports EVP Craig Barry chats about how things are at the sports division. (AdWeek)
Profile: NBC News’ Hallie Jackson on parenting during the pandemic. (InStyle)
ESPN’s Sarah Spain reveals she is part of the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) Chicago Red Stars ownership group. (Awful Announcing)
The international streaming business is being led by women. (Variety)
Profile: Fox News’ Peter Doocy is the combative reporter during White House briefings. (Los Angeles Times)
Sinclair hit with layoffs. (Oliver Darcy/Twitter)
Amazon Prime to get Thursday Night Football. (Wall Street Journal)
CNN should not have let Chris Cuomo interview his brother. (The Big Lead)
Pedro Gomez's son pays tribute to his father. (New York Post)
WGN is officially NewsNation. (NewscastStudio)
CBS Weekend News promotes Craig Wilson, Mark Reeves, and Alicia Alford. (TVNewser)
Discovery Plus is striving despite its low key presence. (New York Times)
Toxic culture for women reported at Golf Channel. (Awful Announcing)
ViacomCBS’ Tom Ryan on what he expects from Paramount Plus. (AdWeek)
Former vice president Mike Pence to narrate Rush Limbaugh special for Fox Nation. (Deadline)
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A MarkHenry Media LLC publication - issue #49 - 2021