ABC Inc.

According to Variety, the latest front in Hollywood's labor war is over hair, makeup and limos. Insiders told the trade paper that ABC and ABC Studios will not pick up the tab for its talent attending the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Jan. 27, set to air on TNT and TBS. In less contentious times, it's industry tradition that networks and studios split the costs of getting talent ready for the red carpet at awards shows.  read more »

Speaking of Quarterlife, its star, Lolita Davidovich will play a recurring role on freshman ABC drama Dirty Sexy Money. The show has received a full-season pickup, according to The Hollywood Reporter. ABC launched the strongest slate of series this fall, including the top new drama "Private Practice," the top new comedy "Samantha Who?" and the best-reviewed new series "Pushing Daisies," all previously picked up for a full season.  read more »

Ugly Betty’s Mark Indelicato, decked out in a tux with a candy-apple red vest, lead a Broadway-like performance of "One Singular Sensation," to open up ABC’s Upfront presentation yesterday afternoon. America Ferrera and the rest of the cast joined him, kicking up their heels in a chorus line. (We see a very special musical episode of Ugly Betty on the horizon.)  read more »

This afternoon ABC presents its 2007-2008 schedule to media and ad reps at Lincoln Center; to get things started this morning, the network released the lineup to press.

“We’re heading into the new season with a strong lineup of returning shows that we’ve developed and nurtured over the past few years,”  read more »

Hillary Clinton picked up the guy who ran John Kerry's New Hampshire operation.

Cory Booker met with fund-raisers to plan an event for Hillary Barack Obama.

Former NY1 producer David Chalian is named political director of ABC News.

Scott Sala thinks I should "bother the crap" out of Andrew Cuomo until I get an interview.

New York City is run by "nanny government."

Eliot Spitzer wants background checks conducted on people bidding for the state's horseracing franchise.

Spitzer is calling individual state Senators to get them to abandon Joe Bruno.

The Drum Major Institute and President Bush agree on something.

NY Sun Politics has a Q & A with Rudy-critic George Marlin.

WSJ has emails showing that the White House sought to fire several US prosecutors before 2005.

And above is an old picture of Sheldon Silver.

-- Azi Paybarah

On the afternoon of Feb.  read more »

It’s just past 8 a.m.  read more »

Dec. 18 was another terrifyingly mild day in New York City.  read more »

On the desk in Shelley Ross’s soon-to-be former office—room 911, not incidentally, at ABC headqu  read more »

On the desk in Shelley Ross’s soon-to-be former office—room 911, not incidentally, at AB  read more »

Rudy Giuliani has just filed to set up a presidential exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission, ABC News is reporting.

This should, for now, put to rest speculation about whether Giuliani's recent establishment of an exploratory committee at the state level meant that he was somehow less than serious about running for president.

-- Josh Benson

Around lunchtime on Nov.  read more »

On Oct.  read more »

On Oct.  read more »

The scandal surrounding Florida Rep. Mark Foley is reverberating pretty loudly in New York.

First, the seat of upstate Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds is likely to become more competitive as it becomes known that, as head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, Reynolds may have been aware Foley's inappropriate emails a year ago. And did nothing.

An aide to Reynolds, who used to work for Foley, tried "to get ABC News to cover up the worst part" according to Americablog.

Second, the Foley scandal now means Democrats need only 14 seats to win back control of the House, making it that much more like that this guy could be chairing the Ways and Means Committee next year.

-- Azi Paybarah

In a colorful e-mail to one ABC News colleague, Chris Cuomo—son of Mario, brother of Andrew; he of  read more »

On July 18, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 27th  read more »

Good Morning America executive producer Ben Sherwood has resigned from ABC, according to three network sources. Sherwood, who agreed to the terms of the resignation in a meeting Thursday with ABC News president David Westin, will leave the network October 1, the sources said.

Sherwood, a Harvard graduate, Rhodes scholar and the author of two novels with a third forthcoming, has run the second-place morning program for two years--the two most successful in the show's history but still deflating ones, ratings-wise. During a period of high dawntime drama last May, the broadcast crept to within 40,000 viewers of NBC's long-dominant Today show, but has since fallen into a protracted slump. Nielsen Media Research released its sweeps ratings data today, showing that Good Morning America ended May 800,000 viewers behind its rival Today.

Sherwood is leaving behind a seven-figure contract, network sources said. He will return to his hometown of Los Angeles, where his wife is the co-chairman of Imagine Films and where he has an ailing parent, said two people close to Sherwood.

The relationship between Sherwood and GMA anchor Diane Sawyer is rumored to have soured in recent months, as ratings continued to slip. Last week's promotion of GMA anchor Charlie Gibson to the World News Tonight anchor chair put further strain on the ailing broadcast.

Still, a top ABC executive said the network will be sad to see Sherwood go and that he has "an open invitation to return to ABC News." In the meantime, the executive said, Disney will endeavor to find a role for Sherwood within the company that he can fill in California.

"We would like nothing better than for Ben Sherwood to continue to be the executive producer of Good Morning America for a long time to come," the executive said, "but that is not in the cards."

--Rebecca Dana

As of Memorial Day, Charlie Gibson will finally, officially and for the foreseeable future be the so  read more »

It must be nice to be Eliot Spitzer right now.

At an appearance this morning in midtown at the Personal Democracy Forum, he gave a lengthy policy speech without once referring to the fact that he's not technically governor yet.

Nor did that fact come up in a subsequent question-and-answer session with ABC News political director Mark Halperin and with members of the tech-obsessed audience.

Spitzer's talk on New York's "digital divide" and the need for state government to facilitate universally accessible, affordable broadband technology went over well enough, drawing repeated applause in an auditorium filled with people balancing computers on their laps.

When the clapping died down after one line about a "comprehensive statewide broadband initiative," Spitzer said, "If that line didn't work here, I was going to give it up."

He went on to lay out a vision of the near future that was heavily inspired, by the sounds of it, by Personal Democracy founder Andrew Rasiej: upstate farmers remotely controlling milking machines, fire and police dispatchers receiving marching orders from anywhere in the field and constituents complaining to their elected officials through wireless broadband technology.

Under questioning from Halperin, Spitzer correctly named the price of a single-tune download from iTunes, but pled ignorance on his monthly bill for internet access at home. When asked about his broader plan, Spitzer declined to get too specific about how the state would farm out the work of assembling the statewide broadband network, or how much any of it might cost.

Still, it's a nice problem for him to have: a genuine wonk, he's talking about governing half a year out from the actual election, even before his policy platform is fully formed.

At some point, he'll have to fill in the pesky details. But the mere fact that Spitzer is now spending his time testing out policy themes in front of specialized audiences doesn't say much for his level of concern about his Democratic opponent, Tom Suozzi, who has been reduced to the old he-won't-debate-me campaign theme in an effort to make voters aware that there still is, in fact, a race to be run. (Surely, the campaign volunteer in the chicken suit can't be far behind.)

"The future of New York," Spitzer said, "doesn't belong to the armies of the status quo."

He seemed pretty confident today that it belongs to him.

At a Nightline staff meeting last week in Washington, ABC News correspondent John Donvan raised the  read more »

At a Nightline staff meeting last week in Washington, ABC News correspondent John Donvan raised the  read more »

ABC News executives have suspended Weekend Good Morning America executive producer John Green for a month, after two politically charged personal e-mails Green sent to a colleague were leaked to the press, according to two network sources.

In one e-mail, sent during a presidential debate on Sept. 30, 2004, Green wrote, "Are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the 'mixed messages' line one more time, I'm going to puke." That message appeared on the Drudge Report on March 23. Green e-mailed his staff the day it was posted to apologize. In his mea culpa, which was also posted on Drudge, Green wrote "I want all of you to know how much I regret the embarrassment this story causes ABC. It was an inappropriate thing to say and I'm deeply sorry."

On March 30, The New York Post's "Page Six" quoted from another Green e-mail, this one about former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In that note, for which no date was given, Green argued that Albright should not be booked on GMA because she has "Jew shame," the Post reported.

Weekend GMA staffers were told of Green's suspension today.

An ABC spokesman declined to comment, saying the network does not discuss personnel matters.

--Rebecca Dana

ABC News’s uber-wired Political Unit feeds conventional wisdom into a 19-part (!) numerical formula, and finds that conventional wisdom emerges. They call it the Invisible Primary, which apparently ]measure(s) past, present, and future simultaneously." Mediawise, it’s kind of a brilliant idea: When the time comes, it will generate its own quasi-news. "Rudy Giuliani moves up in our invisible primary rankings. Next up, George and his panel discuss."

Hillary leads the Democrats, McCain the Republicans. Contra the polls -- but as CW has held for a while -- Rudy is stuck in fourth place in the GOP field.

Hillary’s occasional booing on the St. Patrick’s Day parade route raised the question: Are Irish guys (to a demographer, white Catholics) in fact the slice of America that hates Hillary most?

I asked ABC News pollster Gary Langer about this. His answer: not quite.

"Sen. Clinton is far less popular among evangelical white Protestants than she is among Catholics, including Catholic men," he emailed.

He also helpfully sent on some of the breakdown of Hillary’s national favorable numbers from the gold-standard ABC News/Washington Post Hillary poll.

Here they are, listed as favorable-unfavorable percentages:

All 52-46 Men 49-48 Women 54-44 Whites 46-52 Nonwhites 71-25 White Catholics 54-46 White Protestants 39-59 Evangelical white Protestants 32-66

Unfortunately (for St. Patrick’s Day Parade explanation purposes), there’s no cross-tab for intoxication.

Don’t unplug that coffeepot just yet: Diane Sawyer isn’t angling to leave Good Morning America f  read more »

Don’t unplug that coffeepot just yet: Diane Sawyer isn’t angling to leave Good Morning A  read more »

This seems to be the gold standard of 2008 horserace polls, a pretty thoughtful take on Hillary and McCain from ABC News/Washington Post.

More than two years out, most Americans have favorable views of the two most talked about potential 2008 presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. But their support profiles are vastly different: Clinton, much stronger in her base; McCain, far more appealing beyond his.

Fifty-two percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll have a favorable opinion of Clinton, compared with 59 percent for McCain. McCain's popularity is at once broader across partisan lines and less divisive in terms of intensity of sentiment. Yet the flip side is that he's considerably weaker among Republicans than Clinton is among Democrats.

It's conventional wisdom, but with lots of good detail. Which isn't the worst thing.

In December, ABC settled at last on a long-term plan for World News Tonight.  read more »

Here is everything we know about the future anchor of the CBS Evening News, as outlined on Jan.  read more »

Early this fall, Ben Sherwood, the executive producer of Good Morning America, gave every member of  read more »

Early this fall, Ben Sherwood, the executive producer of Good Morning America, gave every member of  read more »

In a meeting with reporters in Los Angeles last January, CBS president Leslie Moonves made some sugg  read more »

Not for the first time today, I reported out a Pataki tidbit -- the fact that he'll be in Iowa (of all places!) tomorrow -- only to find that it had run this morning in ABC News's comprehensive daily political site, The Note. And you know you're running for President when The Note becomes the outlet of choice for your campaign leaks.  read more »

I've spent this morning at the New School, where two panels of senior aides to the five major Mayoral candidates went back over campaign decisions, first the primary and then the general election, steered by ABC News's Mark Halperin.

The event featured a little news: Bloomberg aide Bill Cunningham says of Mike's spending, "Inflation adjusted, we might actually be spending less money [than in 2001]."

He also blew a little kiss to Shelly: "We sent flowers to Shelly Silver," after he killed the stadium, he said. "Big red roses."

Ferrer's aides, mostly excepting Roberto, meanwhile, mostly conceded that their candidate is not a great communicator -- "at a certain point, people don't change," said Ferrer campaign manager Nick Baldick -- and that the campaign mishhandled the Diallo episode.

"The politically convenient way would have been to apologize and to say it was a crime," Jef Pollock said. "[Freddy] and others rejected it...as it dragged on the performance got angrier and that didn't really help."

Andrew Kirtzman, meanwhile, defended the endless coverage of the story: "You crafted this incredibly lawyerly, vague answer that neither defended it or apologized....You guys kept it alive by evading the central question."

The conversation detoured briefly into Virginia's flyer flap. Henry Stern offered that the flap was "a substitute" for "people who had a low regard for Ms. Fields' abilities."

Fields campaign manager Chung Seto pointed the finger at consultant Joe Mercurio, who responded in kind:

"London ws bombed by terrorists the same day and they managed to continue the story."

Jim Margolis marvelled a bit at the endlessness of the flap, and pointed out that the use of stock footage is common in television spots.

There was also some debunking Primary night mythology. Anthony and Freddy didn't speak, and there wasn't really any pressure brought to bear on Anthony to drop out.

"The last thing we wish to have in the campaign is affirmative action," Roberto Ramirez said.

(Margolis said he and Pollock did talk that night: "Jef was less than enthusistic.")

Concluded Mark Mellman: "The single most brilliant act by a campaign was to turn... a landslide defeat into a moral victory."

More to come...  read more »

As the Nov.  read more »

As the Nov.  read more »

After Ted Koppel’s last show this Thanksgiving, ABC’s Nightline will begin broadcasting  read more »

After Ted Koppel’s last show this Thanksgiving, ABC’s Nightline will begin broadcasting live fro  read more »

Admit it!  read more »

“It appeared to be a normal day on Good Morning America until Charlie Gibson, who waited his whole  read more »

In a move that came as a surprise to exactly no one in the television news industry, on Tuesday morn  read more »

To the Editor:Was it a slow news day in the Hamptons last Monday?  read more »

“I have to take you back to before 9-11,” Peter Jennings told a reporter from the Orland  read more »

“I have to take you back to before 9-11,” Peter Jennings told a reporter from the Orlando Sentin  read more »

On the afternoon of July 28, barely 24 hours after he signed on to be the next executive producer of  read more »

The Observer learned last night that the next executive producer of ABC News' Nightline will be James Goldston, the British television journalist best known for having edited Martin Bashir's famously discomfiting Michael Jackson documentary, according to sources directly familiar with Goldston's contract negotiations. Goldston, currently a senior producer of primetime specials and investigative reports for ABC News, inked the deal with the network yesterday afternoon, the sources said.

Goldston will take over for Tom Bettag--Nightline's longtime executive producer and a close friend of anchor Ted Koppel--who plans to step down when Koppel does, this coming December. The two announced their "suicide pact" this spring, after years of tense relations with the network stemming from ABC's aggressive and unsuccessful 2002 bid to lure David Letterman to the 11:35 time slot Nightline has held for 25 years.

Goldston's top competition for the post was Sara Just, the current second-in-command at Nightline, who was said to be the preferred candidate among the show's tight-knit staff. Just traveled to New York for a meeting this morning with ABC brass. ABC plans for her to continue to work as managing senior producer of the show at least through the December transition, an ABC source said.

Since Koppel and Bettag announced their intention to leave, the Alphabet network has been experimenting with new formats for Nightline, the storied half-hour, single-topic program that has won every major journalism award more than once, including eight Peabodys, twelve duPont-Columbia awards, and scores of Emmys. Just has overseen the experimentation, trying out multi-topic and multi-anchor shows on Koppel's two nights off each week.

The shows have featured fill-in anchors Chris Bury, Jake Tapper, Bill Weir and Cynthia McFadden, among others. Segments have included a homage to still-not-retired 46-year-old baseball legend Rickey Henderson, narrated by ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, and a much-buzzed about alternative-format edition shot in New York, on a stage that resembled a jazz club, with a smoke machine and small tables and chairs for the audience.

Goldston is scheduled to take over the experimental programming in two weeks, according to a newtwork source.

In response to public speculation about what will become of Nightline, which began as a 20-minute show called "America Held Hostage" during the 1979-80 Iran hostage crisis, ABC News executives have said repeatedly that no matter what happens to the format after the old guard leaves, the show will retain its basic DNA: same in-depth interviews. Same moody gravitas. Same set; same staff; same city.

But Goldston's appointment over Just--a long-time staffer with a flawless Nightline pedigree--makes those assurances somewhat less reassuring. Despite an accomplished career abroad, including a long stint with the British television network ITV, where he produced the popular Iraq war news show "Shock and Awe," Goldston is still an outsider, assigned to lead a close-knit group that is often accused of elitism and clubbiness by others at the network. He lives in New York, and Nightline is shot in Washington. Bettag originally did the executive producer job from New York as well, but the news has only fueled insider speculation that the network has plans to move Nightline to its New York studios, where executives can keep a closer eye on the staff.

Goldston's appointment also raises the possibility that Bashir, who works as a correspondent for ABC News, might join his old friend on Nightline. Producers have auditioned a rotating docket of talent on Koppel's off-nights but have not settled on a new anchor or anchors, and Bashir could be a promising candidate. His documentary "Living with Michael Jackson" was originally produced for ITV in 2003. It aired on ABC that same year and drew more than 27 million viewers. That program, in which Jackson extolled the virtues of sharing his bed with little boys, became not-damning-enough evidence at the heart of Mr. Jackson's second child molestation trial, at which Mr. Bashir testified and which concluded earlier this year.

Thus the new Ted Koppel could be the man who helped sear an image of the King of Pop's bedtime habits into the American brain.

Still, for Nightline fans who wish the show would stay the same, the results could have been worse--a lot worse. The appointment of Goldston should at least quell persistent rumors that ABC might bring in Ellen DeGeneres or Chris Rock to replace Koppel and make a go of taking on Jay Leno and Letterman. It also should at least forestall the efforts of ABC's sports and entertainment divisions, both of which had been working up proposals for what they would do with the coveted late-night time period.

And if nothing else, beleaguered Jimmy Kimmel—the recipient of Nightline's lead-in, who must by now have developed a nervous tic for all the rumors of his show's imminent cancellation or exile to a wee-hours time slot—can breathe a little easier. For the time being.

--Rebecca Dana

UPDATE: ABC News confirms the hire in a press release:

ABC NEWS NAMES JAMES GOLDSTON EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF "NIGHTLINE"

James Goldston has been named executive producer of ABC News Nightline, ABC News President David Westin announced today. Mr. Goldston will oversee production and editorial content of the program and assume management of "Nightline's" Washington, DC and New York City based offices, following current executive producer Tom Bettag's departure at the end of the year. "James is a talented and experienced producer with deep roots in daily and documentary news. His admiration and respect for Nightline's rich history and tradition coupled with his strong journalistic background makes James the ideal producer to lead Nightline into the future," said Mr. Westin. "I am delighted and honored to be joining the Nightline team. It is a show with a rich and vibrant heritage, and I'm very much looking forward to working with everyone at ‘Nightline' to maintain and enhance its reputation in the year's ahead," said James Goldston.

Prior to joining ABC News in 2004, Mr. Goldston was the executive producer of Britain's most watched current affairs program, ITV1's "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" from 2002 - 2004. There, he produced a series of celebrated documentaries, including "Millionaire - A Major Fraud," Britain's most watched documentary for nearly 10 years; Shock and Awe - "Tonight's" award-winning coverage of the Iraq War anchored from Kuwait and Baghdad," and "Living with Michael Jackson." From 1999 - 2001, he was a senior producer of several award-winning interviews and investigations for "Tonight."

The Royal Television Society has awarded Mr. Goldston and "Tonight" the prestigious Program of the Year award three times in five years.

Mr. Goldston was a producer for several BBC News programs, including "Newsnight," the network's nightly news analysis show and a "Nightline" descendant. There he was responsible for daily coverage of several international stories, including the Kosovo War, the Good Friday peace agreement, and President Clinton's impeachment. He has produced for the BBC's flagship current affairs program, "Panorama" and "The Money Program."

Mr. Goldston joined ABC News last year as a senior producer of primetime specials and investigative reports, including ABC's world exclusive investigation into Victor Conte, the figure at the center of the Balco steroids sports scandal.  read more »

Mr. Goldston is a graduate of Jesus College, Oxford University.

"Online dating sucks.  read more »

“Online dating sucks. Everybody's full of shit.”    read more »

The latest version of iTunes, released late last month, features a podcast hub, organizing hundreds of streaming audio programs by genre and content. The browser includes a real-time Top 100 chart--heavily populated by podcasts about Apple computers and/or sex, but with an assortment of other subjects. Ten selected highlights from the list, as of this afternoon:

2. The Al Franken Show 5. Podfinder with Adam Curry 7. Queer Eye Hip Tips 11. Z100 Phone Taps with Elvis Duran 13. ABC News--The Shuffle with Jake Tapper 17. The Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab 21. Adam Curry: Daily Source Code 30. KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell 41. Open Source Sex 86. CNN Marketplace Update  read more »

--Leon Neyfakh