ABC News is seeking a new executive producer for its Sunday public affairs show, This Week With George Stephanopoulos.
Potential candidates for the opening aren’t being limited to ABC Newsers. The search is still in early days, and the show’s current ep Jonathan Greenberger is working with both ABC News president James Goldston and ABC News’ svp of talent Barbara Fedida to find his successor.
Despite the imminent change, Greenberger isn’t leaving the network. He will remain ABC News vice president and Washington bureau chief, a role he has held since 2014, and will continue to report directly to Goldston.
It doesn’t appear a permanent hire needs to be made by a specific date.
“I love This Week.” Greenberger told us via phone this afternoon. “I started out as a production coordinator in 2005. I have been EP for five-and-half years, Washington bureau chief for four-and-a-half years, and have had to go back and forth between Washington during the week, and New York on weekends for the show.”
Greenberger said he went into the executive producer role with the expectation that he would be at the running the show for about a year or so, and then serve exclusively as vp and Washington bureau chief. But Greenberger remarked circumstances changed due to the uniquely intense nature of the presidential campaign, and his plans changed as well.
So why make the move now?
“After the midterms were over, I felt the time was right to finally make that change,” said Greenberger. “So I discussed it with James [Goldston] and with George [Stephanopoulos], who have both been very gracious.”
Among the Sunday politics shows, ABC This Week ranked No. 2 in A25-54 demo viewers and No. 3 in total viewers for the 2017-2018 broadcast season.
It was the third-ranked Sunday public affairs show across the board for Q4 2018, finishing behind NBC Meet the Press and CBS’ Face the Nation (1/2 hour version) in both total viewers and among adults 25-54. The ABC public affairs program didn’t lose much of its total audience relative to Q4 2017 (-3 percent), but it was down from Q4 of last year in A25-54 viewers (-19 percent).
To be fair, Face the Nation traditionally gets a lift on fall Sundays from the NFL.