ABC World News Now
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ABC World News Now (WNN), premiered in 1992, is ABC's overnight news program. Its presentation is typically lighthearted, irreverent and comical. Several well-known news personalities, including Thalia Assuras, Aaron Brown, Andrea Stassou and Anderson Cooper have anchored WNN early in their careers.
History
Generally watched by insomniacs (in the late 1990s, its slogan was "More insomniacs get their news from World News Now than from any other source."), college students, and parents of infants, it has featured serious as well as offbeat news interspersed with odd features such as the "World News Polka" played by Barry Mitchell on the accordion, video footage of dancing camels, and laughter coming from off camera. Weather predictions are made for obscure and exotic places around the world, some of which have ties to the show for various reasons. It also often replays clips from Nightline, ABC World News Tonight, and other ABC News programming. It has been a training ground for several young up and coming news anchors (See List Below) which eventually go on to higher profile network or local affiliate positions. The show is also unique for its interactive segments, some of which pioneered the email communication that is commonly used on newscasts today. The ABC News WNN Message board has been known offer to viewers questions and comments from the anchors themselves, during the course of the show.Of note is that World News Now was used as the prototype for Fred, ABC's plan to run a cable news channel. The plan was floated in 1995 and was later dropped due to issues with cable carriage, including competition with the recently started MSNBC and Fox News Channel.
In 1994, World News Now was the first television program to be broadcast on the Internet, using the CU-SeeMe interface. The program was interactive with the few viewers with Internet access at the time (mainly college students). Victor Dorff, a producer of WNN at the time, arranged for viewers to send web cam images of themselves, which were broadcast in several interactive segments. [link] World News Now was also one of the first shows to webcast; between 1999 and 2001, free live streaming was on the ABC News web site. In 2005, the free behind-the-scenes webcast returned.
The show is produced and airs live in three half-hour segments from 2:00AM ET through 3:30AM ET, Monday Morning-Friday Morning. At 3:30ET, many local affiliates rebroadcast the show (in some cases multiple times) until 4:30AM local time at which time ABC World News This Morning is aired.
Due to its informative and yet irreverent treatment of the news, WNN has numerous fans. Some of its fans record the show and use it as a substitute to early morning news broadcasts. There are also several fan sites.
WNN is currently anchored by Ron Corning and Taina Hernandez.
World News Now is also the name of the live daily afternoon webcast produced and originally anchored by the ABC World News Tonight team, Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff, which began on 3 January 2006. It airs live at 3 P.M. Eastern time via ABCNews.com, and is available to view anytime on the site for the remainder of the day. It is also available for daily download on iTunes, where it is one of the most frequently downloaded podcasts. After Woodruff's injury in Iraq, the webcast was anchored on a rotating basis by Vargas, Dan Harris, David Muir, and others. The webcast is now anchored by current World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson. The weekday webcast has been recently expanded to the weekends, allowing for a updated webcast to be available any day of the week.
Regular Segments
- Top Story
- Weather
- Sports
- Nightline - The first minutes of the primary topic of each evening's nightline
- This Week - (Only on Monday Mornings) The "Roundtable" segment, a debate of pundits from both sides of politics, is featured.
- World News Then - Somewhat of a "This Day in History" segment, a story from a given date in the past, having some relevance to the present is shown.
- Their News Now - A major national or international story, seen from the perspective of a local station that covers it.
- Leah At The Movies - People Magazine's Leah Rozen gives her top picks for new releases of the week.
- Interviews - One of the anchors interviews a newsmaker or celebrity
- Gadget Guy - Dick DeBartolo talks about and demonstrates the newest gadgets and technology
Other Segments
- The final segment usually consists of the anchors discussing the news, their lives, or the day in general. Some half hours feature a discussion of headlines and smaller stories appearing in the new day's papers from around the country (Similar to the segment on CNN's defunct Newsnight as Aaron Brown and producer David Bohrman brought said segment from his WNN tenure) or of course, Friday Morning's Polka, sung by Barry Mitchell.
- When an anchor of numerous broadcasts finally leaves, a ceremony of sorts is held on their last broadcast. As the first few anchors moved on, cardboard cutouts were placed in the rafters of the studio for the "Anchor Hall of Fame". Today, this is done with a graphics sequence of a head-shot of the anchor moved into a graphic of the original set's rafters and monitors.
WNN former anchors
| From | To | Anchors |
|---|---|---|
| 01/1992 | 01/1993 | Aaron Brown and Lisa McRee |
| 01/1993 | 05/1993 | Aaron Brown |
| 05/1993 | 07/1993 | Aaron Brown and Thalia Assuras |
| 07/1993 | 09/1993 | Thalia Assuras |
| 09/1993 | 08/1994 | Thalia Assuras and Boyd Matson |
| 08/1994 | 11/1994 | Thalia Assuras |
| 11/1994 | 03/1995 | Thalia Assuras and Kevin Newman |
| 03/1995 | 12/1995 | Kevin Newman |
| 12/1995 | 01/1996 | Kevin Newman and Thalia Assuras |
| 01/1996 | 04/1996 | Thalia Assuras |
| 04/1996 | 01/1997 | Thalia Assuras and Mark Mullen |
| ??/???? | Current | Ron Corning and Heather Cabot |
- Asha Blake
- JuJu Chang
- Liz Cho
- Anderson Cooper
- Tamala Edwards
- Sheilah Kast
- Derek McGinty
- David Muir
- Alison Stewart
- Jim Sciutto
- Gigi Stone
- Andrea Canning
External links
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