NewsNation has signed former ABC News anchor Elizabeth Vargas to lead a new nightly newscast.
Elizabeth Vargas Reports, which launches on April 3 and airs at 6 p.m. ET, will be based out of New York and offers viewers a deep dive into the day’s biggest stories.
Vargas most recently has been moonlighting as host of iCrime with Elizabeth Vargas, a 30-minute reality series that takes a modern look at crime from the vantage point of smartphone cameras. She was also the host of America’s Most Wanted on Fox.
The Peabody and Emmy-award-winning anchor is best known for her 20-year tenure at ABC News, spending 15 of those years as host of ABC’s newsmagazine show 20/20. She also co-anchored World News Tonight and filled in on Good Morning America.
NewsNation is making its intentions known that it wants to compete seriously with the big three news networks and has been aggressively expanding its programming output and capabilities.
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo launched his primetime show last fall; the network added an early morning news show in June and gave its long-time anchor Marni Hughes a mid-morning show in September of last year.
NewsNation also brought on the former political editor of Fox News, Chris Stirewalt, to lead its political unit.
The network is in the process of building out new production facilities in New York City and Washington, D.C.
With the addition of Vargas, NewsNation now has three former on-air ABC News talent anchoring a show, with the other two being Cuomo and Dan Abrams.
The ABC News ties do not end there. NewsNation’s president of news is Michael Corn, the former senior executive producer of Good Morning America.