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Good Morning America
Good Morning America title card used since September 5, 2006.
Genre	News program
Creator(s)	Donald L. Perris William F. Baker
Starring	Diane Sawyer (1999–present) Robin Roberts (2002–present) Sam Champion (2006–present) Chris Cuomo (2006–present)
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	120 minutes (two hours) (including commercials, and local news/weather cut-ins [on some affiliates])
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Picture format	16:9 720p HDTV
Original run	November 1, 1975 –

Good Morning America is a weekday morning news show that is broadcast on the ABC television network. The show was launched in 1975. The show features news, talk, weather, and special interest stories. It is produced live from Times Square Studios in New York City and fed to all network affiliates. It was the first network morning news program to broadcast in HDTV (rival The Today Show began broadcasting in HDTV beginning on September 13, 2006). The program is currently hosted by Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts. Longtime anchor Charles Gibson left the program on June 28, 2006 to become the lead anchor at ABC News. When major events happen in Washington during the morning hours, then the show is often broadcast from Washington D.C.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Early years 1975 1.2 1976-1980 1.3 1980s 1.3.1 Format evolves 1.3.2 CBS joins the fray 1.4 1990s 1.5 1999-2006 1.6 2006-current 2 Good Morning America Radio 3 Current hosts 3.1 Past hosts 4 Contributors 5 International broadcasts 6 See also 7 External links

In January 1975, ABC launched AM America in an attempt to compete with the The Today Show on NBC, hosted by Jim Hartz and Barbara Walters. ABC's show was hosted by Bill Beutel and Stephanie Edwards, with Peter Jennings reading the news. The show could not find an audience against The Today Show, so ABC started to look for a new approach. While looking around, they found that one of their affiliates, WEWS in Cleveland, Ohio, was not broadcasting A.M. America but instead was airing a locally produced show called The Morning Exchange.

Unlike A.M. America and The Today Show, The Morning Exchange featured an easygoing and less dramatic approach by offering news and weather updates only at the top and bottom of every hour and used the rest of the time to discuss general-interest/entertainment topics. The Morning Exchange also established a group of regular guests who were experts in certain fields such as health, entertainment, consumer affairs, travel, etc. Also unlike both the NBC and ABC shows, The Morning Exchange was not broadcast from a newsroom set but instead one that resembled a suburban living room. The show's creators, Donald L. Perris and William F. Baker, felt the living room set would make viewers feel more comfortable^{[citation needed]}. The result of all of this was ratings of nearly 70% for The Morning Exchange^{[citation needed]}.

ABC took an episode of The Morning Exchange and used it as a pilot episode. After rave reviews for the pilot, the format replaced A.M. America in November 1975 as Good Morning America, taking its title from the chorus of the Steve Goodman song "City of New Orleans". Good Morning America's first host was David Hartman, featuring Nancy Dussault as his co-host. Dussault was replaced in 1977 by Sandy Hill.

Good Morning America ratings climbed slowly but steadily throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s while The Today Show experienced a slight slump in viewership, especially with Walters' decision to leave NBC for a job at ABC. On August 29, 1976, Tom Brokaw began anchoring The Today Show while a search was made for a female co-host. Within a year, The Today Show managed to beat back the Good Morning America ratings threat with Brokaw and new co-host Jane Pauley, featuring art and entertainment contributor Gene Shalit.

Good Morning America continued to threaten The Today Show into the 1980s, especially after Brokaw left Today to become NBC Nightly News co-anchor with Roger Mudd for 2 years before being named sole anchor. For the first time, Good Morning America became the highest rated morning news program in the United States as The Today Show fell to second place.

In the beginning of Good Morning America, it was a talk program with a main host, David Hartman, who was joined by a sidekick co-host. Nancy Daussault and Sandy Hill were scripted as less than equal hosts. In 1980, Hill left Good Morning America and was replaced by Joan Lunden, an anchor for WABC in New York. Hartman and Lunden led the show through several seasons of success. The partnership ended in February 1987 as Hartman retired.

Lunden was paired with Charles Gibson and ratings skyrocketed for Good Morning America. They became the most popular news partnership on television in the late 1980s and early 1990s and won the ratings battle against NBC's The Today Show.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the CBS television network, aired only hard news stories during the morning time slot shared by Good Morning America and The Today Show.

CBS became more competitive in the morning news talk show ratings battle, and later launched CBS Morning, using the same format used on Good Morning America and The Today Show. It was hosted by Charles Kuralt and Diane Sawyer. In 1983, CBS This Morning beat The Today Show and took the second place spot after Good Morning America.

Lunden's popularity with viewers made the format to two equal co-anchors become necessary. David Hartman was no longer the main host of the program.

Good Morning America sailed into the 1990s with its overwhelming ratings success. Lunden and Gibson were a hard couple to beat. But Good Morning America would stumble from its top spot in late 1995. Lunden began to discuss working less, and mentioned to network execs that the morning schedule is the hardest in the business. ABC executives promised Lunden a prime time show, Behind Closed Doors, would be on the network schedule. In 1997, Lunden decided to step down after 17 years on the show and was replaced by Lisa McRee. The show was almost killed when Gibson, too, left the show to make way for Kevin Newman in 1998. With McRee and Newman at the helms of Good Morning America, long time viewers switched to The Today Show, whose ratings skyrocketed and have remained at the top spot since the week of December 11, 1995.

In 1999, ABC became desperate to revive Good Morning America, which viewers disfavored. It negotiated Gibson's return, teaming him up with Diane Sawyer. The team was meant to be temporary until ABC could find permanent replacements. However, Good Morning America ratings once again increased and battled The Today Show for viewership, though it has not yet proclaimed a victory in weekly viewership over The Today Show. ABC stuck with the Gibson and Sawyer team as anchors of Good Morning America for 7 1/2 years. Until March 18, 2002, the news was anchored by Antonio Mora. When he left to anchor WBBM-TV in Chicago, Robin Roberts, a former ESPN anchor, replaced Mora.

In May 2005, ABC announced that Roberts, the show's news anchor, would be promoted to co-anchor. She had been regularly filling in for Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson up until then.

As of 2005, Good Morning America has still not prevailed over The Today Show in the ratings, though it has had a few one-show victories on the day after Pope John Paul II's funeral, and then a Mariah Carey concert in 2005. Good Morning America has won in timeslots in large markets like New York, which might have been an indication that the audience was migrating from The Today Show. Recently, however, the viewership gap between Today and GMA has widened again.

On November 3, 2005, GMA celebrated its 30th birthday with recaps to 1975 and by decorating Times Square. Former co-hosts David Hartman and Joan Lunden, along with former meteorologist Spencer Christian were among the guests of honor. Hartman signed off the show that day with his trademark close "From all of us, make it a good day." On that day Good Morning America became the first morning news show to broadcast in HDTV.

On December 2, 2005, weatherman Tony Perkins left Good Morning America, where he has been the weather personality since 1999. The last ten minutes of the day's show was dedicated to Perkins, where he gave thanks to one of the show's producers and a heartfelt goodbye to the three anchors, Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer, and Robin Roberts. Perkins announced that he was going to go home to his family and would be living in Washington, D.C., where he would go back to WTTG-TV, where he was previously a weather personality. He affectionately said to his young child on the air, "Connor, if you're watching, daddy's comin' home." Perkins was replaced by former Chicago WGN-TV morning sports anchor Mike Barz.

Charles Gibson ended his run on Good Morning America on June 28, 2006. The program was dedicated to Gibson's 19 years as anchor on GMA and celebrated his move to the anchor chair at WNT. Gibson ended his tenure by stating, "For 19 years, my mornings have been not just good — they've been great."[1]

U.S. morning television shows currently on air at 7am ET   edit
ABC	Good Morning America
BBC America	World News Today
CBS	The Early Show
CNBC	Squawk Box
CNN	American Morning
FNC	Fox & Friends
HLN	Robin & Company
MSNBC	Imus in the Morning
NBC	Today
syndi	The Daily Buzz
Telemundo	Cada Día
Univision	Despierta América

There is speculation that Diane Sawyer will leave her seat at Good Morning America when her contract expires in 2007 due to the fact that she was coveting the World News Tonight anchor job which was given to Gibson. In August 2006, Chris Cuomo was named news anchor. He will continue his duties on Primetime as well as ABC News Senior Legal Correspondent. As well, Sam Champion was named GMA's new weather anchor as well as ABC News weather editor. Both Cuomo and Champion began their respective duties on the program September 5, 2006, when GMA instituted a new graphics package, and new news area for Cuomo to report the news. Also, beginning on September 13, 2006, GMA introduced a new logo this time with gold font on a blue background.

In January 2006, Good Morning America launched a radio edition of the program on XM Radio's Take Five. The show would incorporate features and news from the television edition as well as allow fans to discuss these topics. The radio edition of the show is hosted by Hilarie Barksy and airs Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to Noon Eastern Time.

• Diane Sawyer, Anchor (1999-Present)
• Robin Roberts, Anchor (2005-Present) News Anchor (2002-2005)
• Chris Cuomo, News Anchor (2006-Present)
• Sam Champion, Weather Anchor (2006-Present)

• David Hartman (1975-1987)
• Nancy Dussault (1975-1977)
• Sandy Hill (1977-1980)
• Joan Lunden (1980-1997)
• Charles Gibson (1987-1998; 1999-2006)
• Lisa McRee (1997-1999)
• Kevin Newman (1998-1999)

• Chris Cuomo (as of 2006), news anchor
• Mike Barz (2005-2006), correspondent
• Kate Snow (as of 2006), weekend host
• Bill Weir (as of 2006), weekend host
• Tony Perkins (1999-2005), former weatherman
• Don Dahler (as of 2006)
• Ron Hazelton (as of 2006)
• Mellody Hobson (as of 2006)
• Gregory Hunter (as of 2006)
• Rebecca Kolls (as of 2006)
• Tory Johnson (as of 2006), workplace contributor
• Timothy Johnson (as of 2006), medical editor
• Emeril Lagasse (as of 2006), food contributor
• Sara Moulton (as of 2006), food contributor
• David Muir (as of 2006), correspondent
• Ann Pleshette Murphy (as of 2006)
• John J. Nance (as of 2006)
• Claire Shipman (as of 2006), senior national correspondent
• Joel Siegel (as of 2006), film critic
• Wolfgang Puck (as of 2006), food contributor
• George Stephanopoulos (1997-2002), political analyst, host of This Week, and chief Washington correspondent)
• Bob Woodruff (as of 2006), correspondent and ABC News anchor
• Hilarie Barksy (Radio Edition - as of 2006)
• Glenn Beck (as of 2007)

• The Nine Network (and its regional affiliates WIN and NBN) airs 90 minutes of GMA Tuesday through Saturday mornings from 4.30am AEST. The weather segment uses Nine's weather maps instead of ABC's. It airs in competition to The Today Show, which airs on the Seven Network. Interestingly, in the WIN and NBN coverage areas, GMA is unchallenged, as Seven's major affiliate Prime airs religious programs and infomercials instead.

• ABC News
• Good Morning America Weekend Edition
• Today (NBC program)
• The Early Show
• Breakfast television

• Official Website
• Good Morning America Summer Concert Schedule

Co-Anchors of Good Morning America
Hartman • Dussault • Hill • Lunden • McRee • Newman • Sawyer • Gibson • Roberts