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Charlie Gibson Stepping Down 12/18

B

bg02445

He is stepping down on December 18th in a low-key switch to Diane Sawyer, who will take over on the 21st.

Diane's last day at GMA is believed to be the 11th.

I wonder if the programs will get a graphics makeover with the switch?
 
OMG!! Can anyone here say KATIE COURIC ALL OVER AGAIN??

Brian Williams must be SALIVATING over this.

Not to mention Matt Laurer & the Today show crew. They too have to be DROOLING.

True, there are the cable news outlets, but while NBC, ABC & even CBS are appealing to light-hearted news viewers in the morning & people who just simply want the day's news in the evening, the cable channels appeal to hardened news junkies all day long. That's a big difference in the style of news presentation.

I'm sorry, but I see this move blowing up in ABC's face.

Just my opinion.....

Cheers :D
 
bg02445 said:
He is stepping down on December 18th in a low-key switch to Diane Sawyer, who will take over on the 21st.

Diane's last day at GMA is believed to be the 11th.
Click to expand...

This development is old news, save for the dates.

And Mr. Cook... don't knock Ms. Couric... As CBS will eagerly remind you, she won an Edward R. Murrow award for two years in a row!
 
Except that it's not Katie again. ABC made a simple, straightforward announcement and has not made sweeping promises a la CBS about reinventing the evening newscast format.

Sawyer also is familiar to ABC audiences and has filled in on that very newscast before, along with her extensive background in "hard" news (60 Minutes, anyone?).

But never let pesky facts get in the way of a hyperbolic rant. ;)
 
ABC is going to be committing ratings suicide by actually letting Diane Sawyer take over for Charlie Gibson.

I started watching World News again shortly after Peter Jennings made his last broadcast, and have stuck with it ever since. The program has been quite resilient despite Jennings' death and the short reign of Woodruff and Vargas. I would have felt better with George Stephanopoulos, Terry Moran, or David Muir running the broadcast. I would even keep watching if they brought back Elizabeth Vargas. It's just a bad idea in my opinion, and ABC will probably be knocked down to #2 as a result. Sawyer isn't a "hard news" anchor in my opinion.
 
bg02445 said:
ABC is already #2 in the ratings.
Click to expand...
Okay. They will be a more distant #2 then.

Besides, who can ABC replace Diane Sawyer with on GMA? Jeremy Hubbard? I think not. He'd make a better news anchor on that show. Then again, he does a good enough job doing reports for Nightline so I highly doubt he'll be reassigned to GMA.

And BTW....It doesn't matter how many awards a journalist wins. If they can't get an audience or deliver the news to the satisfaction of the network brass - THAT JOURNALIST WILL BE REPLACED. Just give the idiots at CBS News to realize the hole they've dug themselves into & Katie will be out of the evening news chair & co-hosting the morning show faster than you can say Rumpelstilskin (I can't believe I even spelled that right).

Just my opinion.....

Cheers :D
 
Jeremy Hubbard hasn't been mentioned as a possibility. Stephanopoulos appears to be the leading contender, with Cuomo in the mix. Stephanopoulos is already going to be Sawyer's main backup, whatever happens with GMA. What none of the reporting on GMA has focused on to any great degree is what would happen if Cuomo got the nod as far as news anchor. Bill Wier or Kate Snow coming over from the weekend show? Or would that upset good chemistry there on top of getting people used to a new weekday show?

Ah, the many dominoes that will be falling into place one way or another.
 
maybe on Charlie's last day he should wear is little glasses that are too far down his face. That way he can do the entire broadcast looking down his nose at the audience with a skeptical look on his face.
 
"Our poll question on ABCNews.com: Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?" ;D
 
Something tells me the average viewer would be able to answer the question better than asking what he means and wearing a blank expression. ;)
 
I'm still amazed that with all of the talent ABC has that the network brass would select Diane Sawyer to replace Charlie Gibson. ::)

Sorry ABC but count one less viewer to your nightly news starting December 21st.
 
Mark_Giardina said:
I'm still amazed that with all of the talent ABC has that the network brass would select Diane Sawyer to replace Charlie Gibson.
Click to expand...

I'm amazed that it matters so much who the Talking Head is. I mean, so long as the person doing the news reading is articulate and pleasing to look at what else would you demand from so simple a job?
 
well, at CBS it was the girl's turn, so ABC has to give the girl a turn as well.....otherwise they're all
Neanderthal SEXISTS, get it?? ::)
 
And of course, the people making the decision couldn't possibly be basing the decision on their belief that the candidate is the best choice for the job?

No one, absolutely no one, will appeal to everyone, so no matter who's picked, you're going to get the bi--hing and moaning about why they didn't pick someone else.
 
imhomerjay said:
And of course, the people making the decision couldn't possibly be basing the decision on their belief that the candidate is the best choice for the job?

No one, absolutely no one, will appeal to everyone, so no matter who's picked, you're going to get the bi--hing and moaning about why they didn't pick someone else.
Click to expand...

Trouble here is that a lot of us are having a VERY hard time believing that Sawyer is the best choice for the job. ABC should have, and could have, picked a better candidate. Their ratings have eroded since Charlie began hosting and they will crater with Diane. In the end, it'll be NBC by a wide margin followed by ABC with Katie still in the rear. The combined viewership of evening news will sag even faster than it has. Rather than being competitive with NBC, they will soon be competitive with CBS. Truly a race to the bottom.

In summary, this was an opportunity missed. And, given that they had over a year to think about what they were going to do, this was an absurd choice. Sorry Diane, but that's just the way it is.....
 
Diane has always been too "snooty" for my tastes. I believe it's just her intonation and accent, but it sounds too "highbrow" for me. Back in the early 80's, she was very appropriately paired with Charles Kuralt, when CBS expanded the Sunday Morning format to weekday mornings. For the youngsters here, imagine a faster paced Sunday Morning on weekdays (with live interviews of newsmakers). Actually, I really liked the weekday show. It was very appealing to me and about 8 other Americans at the time. :D
 
BRNout said:
Trouble here is that a lot of us are having a VERY hard time believing that Sawyer is the best choice for the job. ABC should have, and could have, picked a better candidate. Their ratings have eroded since Charlie began hosting and they will crater with Diane. In the end, it'll be NBC by a wide margin followed by ABC with Katie still in the rear. The combined viewership of evening news will sag even faster than it has. Rather than being competitive with NBC, they will soon be competitive with CBS. Truly a race to the bottom.
Click to expand...

Oh, well, gee, the message board posters think it's a bad choice. Quick, rescind the offer! We all know our collective brainpower can never be wrong. ::)

Much like the proverbial million monkeys eventually coming up with the works of Shakespeare, a collection of us, be we amateur interested observers, wanna-bes or never-weres, can make grand predictions when we know there's no way to disprove a theory. "Sink faster than they would have?" Beautiful. Since we won't know what would have happened with anyone else, and we can reasonably surmise that an ever-more-fractured media environment will lead to generally smaller slices of the pie compared to some imagined glory days when there only were two or three choices, um, duh, when the numbers gradually decrease across the board, it doesn't make anyone here claire voyant (any more than watching storm clouds on the horizon and guessing rain is coming makes one a meterologist).
 
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