Nightline As We Know It Is Over
Our cousin has a post significant enough about the future of Nightline today that we’re going to quote it in full here. This is very big news for not just the ABC bureau, where jobs are on the line, but Nightline is also the largest network show produced in D.C.–and basically the only non-Sunday show–done out of the Washington bureaus.
On a conference call Wednesday, Nightline EP James Goldston announced that the ABC program will move its studio operations to Times Square after Ted Koppel takes a final bow on Nov. 22. The revised broadcast will premiere after Thanksgiving on Nov. 28. “Some jobs will be lost in D.C., how many is unknown,” a tipster says.
Broadcasting & Cable has a bunch of other details about the new Nightline:
> “There will be two anchors in New York and one in D.C…But they won’t be chatty co-anchors, said Goldston, and the New York pair might not necessarily be on the air at the same time.”
> “The program will be produced from both Times Square in New York and its DeSales Street Washington studios…The show opening, which had been edited in Washington, will now be edited in New York, which some staffers in D.C.”
> “Washington will maintain a 24/7 control room — which also contributes to GMA and World News Tonight, and two senior producers. But the main control room will now be in New York.”
> “Goldston is said to have told staffers that the show would only begin with a topical news story if it were big and dynamic, but that if it were, the story could wind up taking up most of the show.”
> John Eggerton blogs: “I don’t know what the new Nightline will become, but it is clear that the Nightline I’ve known and loved and taken for granted for years is going away.
“That show, which put the news of the day in context or advanced it thanks to the best interviewer of his generation, or probably any other, is being replaced by a multi-anchor news show, softer, more New York, more L.A., and younger skewing.
“Gotta get those demos, those dollars. But at what price?”
> Gawker’s POV: “You know what Nightline is missing? Idiots with cardboard signs outside the studio. Thankfully, once Koppel’s outta there, that’s what it’ll be getting.”
