ABC’s GMA Day is preparing for a name change. According to an exclusive in Variety, the set for Monday’s taping has been changed and now says GMA Strahan & Sara.
What’s happening:
- The afternoon extension of the network’s “Good Morning America” has reportedly received a new name and look.
- The program now places more significance on hosts Michael Strahan and Sara Haines, with the set reading GMA Strahan & Sara.
- ABC News declined to make executives available for comment.
About GMA Day:
- After canceling the afternoon cooking and lifestyle show, The Chew, ABC launched GMA Day in September 2018.
- The hour long program is hosted by Sara Haines and Michael Strahan and covers a variety of topics from news and cooking, to interviews, shopping, and more.
- Variety notes that Day has not yet matched the viewership of The Chew reporting that Day typically averaged between 1.7 million and 1.9 million, according to figures from Nielsen.
- However, Variety also says that executives have been pleased with the steady audience numbers for such a new show.
- When the show debuted, Kevin Wildes—a former ESPN executive—was named the show’s producer but has since stepped away. Rory Albanese, the former executive producer of Comedy Central’s Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, is now overseeing operations.
- Last spring it was announced that Sara Haines would be leaving The View to launch the new show.
- According to an ABC insider, the network “has always viewed the newly-christened Strahan & Sara as a work in progress. The show came together quickly and its debut was seen as a ‘soft launch.’ The expectation has always been that the series would be tweaked along the way as producers and hosts found out what worked best.”
More ABC:
- The network is also set to launch another syndicated daytime hour with former Today co-host Tamron Hall in the fall.