Mayhem in ayem
'GMA' staff changes brings Sawyer, Gibson
Sawyer, a "20/20" heavyweight who served as co-anchor of "CBS This Morning" from 1981-84, will return to the dawn patrol for an indefinite "transitional" period of several months as ABC execs try to hammer out a long-term direction for the program. She'll anchor "GMA" with Charles Gibson, who left the show last spring but has agreed to return on an interim basis (Daily Variety, Dec. 29, 1998).
The Sawyer-Gibson pairing, the show's fourth anchor team of the past 16 months, debuts Jan. 18. Both will continue on "20/20."
"GMA's" most recent on-air duo of Lisa McRee and Kevin Newman is history after just eight months, effective immediately.
Newman, who replaced Gibson as co-anchor last May, will stick around for two more weeks before taking on a gig as a "Nightline" correspondent.
Back to L.A.
McRee, who's been on vacation since Christmas and Monday announced that she is pregnant with her first child, will not return, ending her 16-month run on the program. The former KABC anchor will return to Los Angeles as an ABC News correspondent.
Also out: Exec producer Shelley Lewis, who, like Newman, has been on the show less than a year. She's being replaced by Shelley Ross, a well-regarded ABC News magazine producer who's worked closely with Sawyer and most recently served as exec producer of special projects, West Coast, for ABC News.
Ross will report to Phyllis McGrady, a former "GMA" exec producer and one of the creators of the now defunct "PrimeTime Live" who has been tapped as executive in charge of the broadcast.
ABC News topper David Westin unveiled the radical revamp of "GMA" Monday, meeting with staffers and the press and briefing affils via telephone. He said drastic changes were needed to salvage the broadcast.
"We needed to make a very dramatic move," he told reporters during a telephone conference call, explaining that the show had "wandered away from its core values. ... It needs to go back to the future."
'Powerful statement'
Asking Gibson to return to "GMA" less than a year after he left the show, and bringing one of the web's biggest primetime stars to the morning sends "a powerful statement that the entire (news) division is behind this," Westin argued.
Many industry insiders Monday expressed disbelief that Westin was able to persuade Sawyer to join "GMA," even on a temporary basis. The star anchor doesn't need the exposure and isn't getting any extra cash for the assignment.
Sawyer's rationale for taking the job? "I've been getting too much sleep," she quipped.
The Sawyer/Gibson pairing underscores just how incredibly important "GMA" is to the Alphabet web, its owned stations and its affils. Morning television is an incredibly lucrative daypart, bringing in hundreds of millions in ad revenue, particularly for local stations.
As "GMA" has slid from first to a competitive second to its current status of barely beating CBS' third-place "This Morning," a good chunk of that income has been lost. ABC recently added an extra 30-second spot to the still highly profitable broadcast in the 7 a.m. hour, in part to accommodate advertiser make-goods because of the show's failure to meet ratings goals.
ABC Television Network prexy Pat Fili-Krushel has identified fixing "GMA" as a top priority for the web and been working with Westin to reshape the broadcast.
Westin Monday said he and previous ABC News management share the blamed for "GMA's" fall from ratings glory. "We tried to change the show without a clear enough vision. We were mistaken," he said.
As for his vision of "GMA" now, Westin said the broadcast has "to be a substantive, smart program" that also has "warmth. ... There has to be a family feeling."
Ross said she is a "traditionalist" who wants to move "GMA" back to its homier, warm and fuzzy roots. "It has to be like putting on comfortable slippers," she said.
While Monday's announcements ended months of speculation about the fate of McRee and Newman, it immediately set off a round of buzzing about the long-term future of the broadcast -- particularly since the Sawyer-Gibson team is being sold as a short-term solution.
Westin said the plan is to find the "next generation" of "GMA" talent and integrate the new anchors into the broadcast while Gibson and Sawyer are still on the air. That's how NBC's "Today" handled the introduction of Matt Lauer as a replacement for Bryant Gumbel.
Come September?
There's no official timetable for how long Gibson and Sawyer will remain on the show, though Sawyer said she hopes it would be a matter of "several months." One loose target date is September, when "GMA" is expected to move into its new Times Square studio space.
That's also when "Weekend Today" anchor Jack Ford's deal with NBC expires. Ford, along with CNN's Jim Moret, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the permanent "GMA" co-anchor chair.
As for Newman and McRee, both seemed to be happy to be leaving a broadcast that at times has appeared as troubled as Bosnia in the early 1990s.
"I'm not sorry I took the risk, but I'm very happy with what's happening (now)," Newman told Daily Variety, adding ABC News execs have "dealt with me very well in the end."
McRee, who's married to Paramount Pictures exec VP Don Granger, said she was a bit taken aback when Westin informed her Sunday that she'd be leaving "GMA," but not disappointed.
"It was a mild surprise, but not an unpleasant one," she said, explaining that she was happy to be out of the fishbowl of rumors and finger-pointing.
