MorningNews

George hasn't worked for the Clinton's since the mid 90's.

Though my respect for Matt is virtually nonexistent these days and I do hold him responsible for Ann's shitty exit -- this affair story just seems so ridiculous and I'm taking it with a grain of salt. I mean these rumors date back to what 2006? Nothing has ever materialized out of it so I doubt it's legitimacy.

Yeah Close Up, I always confused it with WNT's Closer Look. Anyway, the times I've watched Today recently they don't seem to do it anymore which is sad because it was sort of signature of the show.

Just curious.. Does Today still have the UpClose segment in the first half hour? I know the first 30 minutes always opened with Katie/Matt introducing the show then tossing to Ann with the top headlines followed immediately after by the UpClose segment.

I just saw Erica Hill anchoring with Don Lemon on CNN. She has literally come full circle.

Ive been watching The View a little more lately and I gotta say I think the panel they've been having for the past week or so is one of their best ever. Whoopi, Sunny, Joy, Sara, and Paula all seem to really gel very well. The conversations are intellectual, it's a return to the good days of The View. I think Paula does good at times with filling the conservative void, but if they are looking to bring a true conservative to the panel full time switch Paula with Jedediah. Jedediah is very passionate and not afraid to share her views, where as Paula is a bit more devils advocate than anything else. Overall ABC this team works keep it this way!

Thanks I was wondering how they handled it at 8am since I was out of the door by then. Yesterday Paula Farris read the news at 8 am and I assumed she was filling in for Amy but now I'm wondering if they did the same thing as they did today having George read them at 7 and a correspondent at 8.

So this morning there was no newsreader. George and Robin handled all of the segments, George briefly read the headlines at about 7:15 then they had Lara a story on the Oscars.

Wait so Shienelle is the female co-anchor? I thought she was to remain newsreader while Stephanie replaced Erica as anchor?

Josh Elliott is filling in for Scott Pelley tonight. [MEDIA=twitter]748274471425970176[/MEDIA]

I don't see them deemphasizing George so much as having him lead the show as the news person opening up those second hour segments that George admittedly doesn't enjoy too much.

Hmm not sure I follow. Matt and Savannah carry themselves and are marketed in pretty much the same way Katie and Matt were. Robin and George are marketed the same way Charlie and Diane were. The anchors aren't the problem and the way they carry themselves aren't the problem. These morning shows for so long have thrived in large part because of the popularity of the anchors. In fact remove Robin or Matt from their shows and you will for sure see audience erosion. Anchor exposure is not the issue. Remove Charlie or Norah and watch that their growth begins to slow as well. Betrayal and insecurity in this business is nothing new and has existed since the start of Hollywood and TV. While I am really happy for CTM, let's keep in mind that their growth is coming during a very busy news cycle. It's expected that a morning news program focused around news would do exceptionally well during a year long heavy news cycle. They still trail NBC by more than 600,000-800,000 viewers. I say this to make the point that while I think CTM has a really great thing going for them, the other two shouldn't be so quick to replicate that for success just yet.

Your points are valid but I'm not so sure that I'm going to cast blame on GMA or Today. I think we're just witnessing a major shift in the audiences demand for these programs. Keep in mind Good Morning America and Today have both built empires off of a format that values personalities and lifestyle segments over news. ABC tried to be more newsier once and they suffered some of their worst ratings ever. The audience is looking for something more thought provoking and CBS is filling the void, the others are catching on to that and will begin to shift soon enough. GMA has already been giving us a taste of what's probably likely to come with Robin, George and Michael leading the show.

I didn't catch it today but all week they had been promoting that Robin would be anchoring live from new Disney park in Shanghai on Wednesday (the day after the shark attack) so I'm guessing it was a little bit awkward. Anyone notice that Lara's role is being significantly reduced?

The Amy thing is new but for the last few weeks they've been very news driven the first hour. Where have they moved Amy? I'm confident she will still be apart of the show for a long time to come, as she's the only one who fills in for Robin. Also if they're revamping this program come this fall there's no way they can keep Lara Spencer. She is absolutely the only unbearable on the show!

I may have missed this..but Rob Elgas will join the 4pm news starting May 26 replacing Krashensky who as we know is moving to Ron's spot. According TVspy

According to an analyst on CNN's Reliable Sources this morning, Good Morning America brings in $400 million bucks to ABC News a year. Enough to keep all of ABC News running where as LIVE brings in $30 million.

So does Lara not fill in for Robin anymore?

On another note... This week has been my first in a while watching GMA in its entirety. Does Lara still fill in for Robin when she's away? Amy is anchoring today for Robin, but there's no news reader. In fact Amy read the headlines in the 8am hour, so she's filling in for Robin and doing her normal duties. Is this common? Also the soft set really sucks and is very ugly.

Sorry meant to say that he may not have found out that Michael had decided to leave until a few days ago. But he knew that Michael had been in negotiations with GMA.

Gelman may not have found out before the show that Michael decided to leave but no way did he just barely figure out that this was all being worked out.

I really cannot believe how this has been blown out of proportion. This is how TV works, Michael probably couldn't say anything to Kelly about it so he didn't. Regardless, he gave her a 4 month advance notice that he was leaving the program. Common courtesy is simply a 2 weeks notice. There's no way that she didn't know that negotiations were on going because Gelman knew about this for months. The reality to me seems to be that Kelly is pissed because she didn't want this to happen and now it's too late so she's throwing a fit. Screw all the talk about it being some under the table deal, that's just what sounds good to the hungry tabloid media.

I hope Lara's upset, hopefully she'll leave. I read an article that the show is being reformatted in September around Robin, George and Michael as the leads. George and Amy will handle more of the news aspect while Robin and Michael take on the lighter things.

I'll have to find it sometime. I know for certain Brian Stetler reported this, it was in the same article announcing Strahan's initial hiring at GMA.

If I remember correctly they offered both host a role on GMA because the show was looking for star power after losing two key players. Kelly turned down the deal because she wasn't interested, they offered the role to Michael and he took it.