Burying his lead, new ABC News President James Goldston sent around a memo to staff today — in Paragraph 6 of which was the announcement he’d promoted Good Morning America‘s Lara Spencer to co-host of the program along with Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos. Roberts recently signed a new contract to stay with the show; ditto Spencer. Stephanopoulos’ contract was due to come up later this year — his reps are in talks with ABC News now.
Related: ‘GMA’ Beats ‘Today’ By Biggest Margin In Three Months
Spencer was the only one of three GMA-ers whose contracts came up around the same time as Roberts’ who re-signed. The two guys — Sam Champion and Josh Elliott — both got poached by NBC, whose Today show saw its longtime ratings record snapped two years ago by GMA.Which brings us to Goldston’s memo: celebrating tomorrow’s anniversary of GMA ending Today’s 852-week winning streak. Here’s the memo:
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Tomorrow marks an historic milestone: two years ago GMA snapped Today’s 852-week winning streak. And every day since, we have played our game and fought like underdogs, never satisfied and always looking for the best stories and those indelible television moments that make GMA so special to our audience.
With our amazing team of George, Robin, and Lara and now Amy and Ginger too- I’m confident there is much more to come-and great days ahead for Good Morning America.Robin – the captain of our team, is the heart of GMA. No matter what she’s faced, she has made it her job to make sure that we are all taken care of. Beyond her amazing broadcasting abilities and dedication to GMA, her compassion and incredible journalism never fails to inspire-and her rallying cry that Everybody’s Got Something inspires millions of Americans every day.
Just yesterday, George, once again, showed us his dedication and versatility – anchoring GMA, rushing to Washington to interview Supreme Court Justice Stevens for This Week and making it back to NY in time to anchor the special report for President Obama’s press conference. A work ethic that’s unmatched.
Nevertheless, Robin and George would be the first to say that it takes an amazing team on air and behind the scenes to do that each morning. And Tom Cibrowski and the GMA production team is without doubt the best in the business.
A key member of our on-air team, Lara Spencer, rejoined ABC three years ago – bringing her style, humor, sunny confidence, wonderful journalism and storytelling to GMA. Lara is clearly an essential ingredient in the success we have enjoyed and I am so pleased to announce that Lara has been elevated to co-host of the program along with Robin and George.
Lara grew up at WABC and GMA and then returned to us in 2011 as GMA mounted its epic challenge. A New York Times best-selling author with another book on the way, the creator and executive producer of Flea Market Flip on HGTV and great mom to Duff and Kate, Lara is simply as talented as they come.
I remain in awe of the entire staff at GMA. With Tom at the helm and Ben’s brilliant leadership, your drive, passion, creativity and unwavering dedication to ABC News and GMA brought us to where we are today.
As I close out my first week in the new job, I want to take a moment to thank everyone for all your good wishes. I could not be more excited and honored to work with this stellar team. Your dedication and passion are unmatched and I look forward to reaching great new heights alongside all of you.
Please join me in congratulating Lara on this well-deserved promotion as we all take a moment to look back on two remarkable years. And here’s to many, many more!
James
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