'GMA' at a Crossroads

On Tuesday, I visited ABC News’ new headquarters in Hudson Square, where “Good Morning America” executive producer Simone Swink was head down preparing for the upcoming 50th anniversary of the morning news program. Swink has yet to fully unpack her new office, where she sat looking over a seating chart for Monday’s celebratory show, which is set to include all current talent as well as legendary former anchors, including David Hartman, Joan Lunden, and Diane Sawyer.

Yet as “GMA” acknowledges its past, the franchise has to adapt to meet its future. Swink told Status she is looking forward to Monday’s anniversary, to “stop and reflect on what has been great about the legacy” of “GMA” throughout the last 50 years. But the job of executive producer has changed significantly, expanding far beyond linear television, as the metrics of success in news are no longer strictly limited to ratings. “We're not just competing with another show,” Swink acknowledged. “We're competing with your phone.”

Much has changed in recent months, including the move from Times Square after 26 years; still, the heart of the show remains the longest-running anchor trio in morning news: Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, and Michael Strahan. “As the industry is changing and morphing, authenticity is one of the most important things,” Swink said of the anchor team. Viewers “know when the chemistry is real,” she added. “That's what you see reflected in ratings.”

That innate chemistry was demonstrated by the show’s recent trip to “Hot Ones,” which Swink also had pulled up on her monitor. As a show of sportsmanship, Swink joined her anchors by eating one of the notoriously spicy wings, which, to her surprise, also wound up in the video’s final cut. “Let me tell you, that was extremely hot,” she said.

“GMA” hasn’t been immune from the intense pressures facing the media at large, especially the rhetorical assaults and legal attacks from Donald Trump. Stephanopoulos was targeted last year in his role as host of “This Week” over how he characterized Trump’s settlement with E. Jean Carroll, which resulted in a controversial $15 million payout by ABC News that sparked widespread condemnation as critics accused the network of capitulating to the president.

Asked if anything had changed since the settlement, Swink said of Stephanopoulos, “He approaches everything rigorously, thoughtfully, fairly … So I would say, ‘No.’”

A 15-year ABC veteran, who was quietly promoted to oversee all hours of “GMA” programming last year, Swink worked on the show when it first reached No. 1 in the morning show ratings race in the mid-2010s. “On a daily basis, the hardest part of all of that is not actually getting to number one, it's staying at number one,” she told me.

And staying on top is becoming even harder. Last year, Status reported that the situation had grown increasingly dire as Swink acknowledged that the show was underperforming, suddenly getting surpassed in total viewers by NBC’s “Today.” The alarming decline caught the attention of Disney executive Debra OConnell, who oversees ABC News, and network president Almin Karamehmedovic, who privately expressed their disappointment at the decline.

While “GMA” still ranks as the top morning newscast in total viewers season to date for the 14th year in a row, it’s by a razor thin margin—a mere 38,000 viewers separating the two programs. Earlier this month, “Today”—which consistently wins the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic—boasted that it had beat “GMA” in total viewers for three consecutive weeks.

Morning shows are the moneymakers for television news networks, printing far more cash than their evening news counterparts. For that reason, their success is imperative to the entire organization and executives pay close attention when the programs show signs that they’re faltering. All of which puts considerable responsibility on Swink’s shoulders as she steers the program through difficult waters.

Meanwhile, as cord-cutting accelerates and advertiser dollars follow audiences to digital platforms, traditional morning shows are also being forced to rethink how they remain relevant. For all the focus on Nielsen ratings, networks must push their morning franchises into the future.

Swink said she remains focused on supporting the linear “GMA” brand while propelling it further into a multiplatform strategy, as streaming and digital performance become increasingly important. ABC News also has a built-in advantage in the streaming space, with the ability to integrate the show into Disney’s already popular platforms Hulu and Disney+. But access to that audience does not necessarily translate into automatic success and it will be up to Swink to forge a strategy that puts the show on a strong digital footing.

“Figuring out what that balance is, and where we put resources and where we keep focusing, will be a large part of what I'll spend the next year or two thinking about,” Swink told me.

As executive producer, Swink feels a responsibility to “do all of it,” she said. “You want to have top ratings, you want to have solid revenue, you want to be fresh and modern, and you want to maintain the classic homey, friendly feel that got the show invited into people's living rooms in the first place.” For Swink, that means getting into the office in the 4 a.m. hour every weekday to ensure that the overnight team is on track for the morning’s show. In the office, she reviews the programming rundown, chats with the anchors, and then finds her way into the control room where she directs the show from behind the scenes.

It's more than a job for Swink, who remains deeply grateful to her staff for allowing her to “feel normal” during her recovery from a battle with cancer a few years ago. During our interview, Swink reflected on that time of personal struggle and what the show gave her in return for her hard work. “I love coming to work, still,” she said proudly. And as “GMA” modernizes for the future while attempting to hold on to the nostalgia morning news viewers expect, Swink is prepared to continue to adapt to morning TV’s new realities. Unpacking her office can wait.

“Some days it feels like, if we all sang, it would be like a new Broadway musical every night,” she said. “It's always opening night, and it's always a different play.”

🔍 Zooming in: Excluding Covid, this was the worst October at the box office in 27 years, Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro reported, as high-profile titles like “Tron: Ares” and “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” hit sour notes. Help could be around the corner from familiar faces, with “Wicked,” “Zootopia” and “Now You See Me” sequels scheduled for this month’s run-up to Thanksgiving, plus “The Running Man” remake and “Predator: Badlands.”

The latest episode of Power Lines is out.

In this week’s show: We discuss Tucker Carlson’s chummy chat with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, the outrage at NBC News and MSNBC over parent company Comcast’s donation to Donald Trump’s ballroom vanity project, John Dickerson’s departure at CBS News and the layoffs that have roiled the Bari Weiss-led network, Elon Musk’s right-wing alternative to Wikipedia, and so much more.

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