World News‘ Jon Banner: We’re “Not In This Business To Be In 2nd Place”

Q&A

by Steve Krakauer | 5:18 pm, December 22nd, 2009

» 3 comments

With Diane Sawyer‘s “smooth” debut last night as anchor of ABC’s World News, the transitions taking place at the network are beginning to come to light.

Executive Producer Jon Banner says it was a “solid” start – and talked to Mediaite about ratings, how Sawyer is different from Charlie Gibson and more.

“I think that was a solid start for us,” Banner tells Mediaite today. “It played to a lot of Diane’s strengths, allowed her to show some of her desires of what she wants to do with the program and also showed her strengths in terms of interviewing…More generally her energy and enthusiasm showed quite nicely in the first program.”

Banner pointed to one way he sees a difference between the anchor he used to produce. “There are some changes in the energy of the broadcast, in the tone of the broadcast, which allowed Diane to show her desires of where to take the program,” he says, although he does not the similarities as well: “Both brought incredible intellect and the journalism standards established over their career are self-evident.”

According to the fast affiliates data, which is not official, the show was up a bit from its season-to-date average, with an 8 million total viewers average season-to-date and 8.41 last night. Banner says the ratings are important for the transition. “I think what would be positive is if we all make progress based on our previous ratings,” he says of his program and Good Morning America. “We all know in the morning and evening we have a lot of work to do. We’re working especially hard during a time when people are traditionally slowing down…This is a marathon, and we intend to last it out. None of us are in this business to be in second place.”

There are very evident changes to the program since Sawyer took over, explained in a post on the World Newser blog by Banner. Sawyer will be doing regular “The Conversation” segments that will provide a looser, more personal pre-show web segment several times a week. Says Banner:

I think one of things we’ve tried to do in this incarnation, more so than the previous, is to match the on-air and online mission. “The Conversation” is born out of that in several ways. It’s digging deep into a single subject and is much more conversational, which plays to her strength, and what the broadcast will do more of. It allows us to hopefully be much more interactive with our audience in the long run.

>>> NEXT PAGE: Banner responds to Stanley, and a look at “The Conversation”.

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abc, ABC News, Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer, Jon Banner, World News

monac58

I love Diane Sawyer and I thought her first night was good. I will miss Charlie Gibson for a long while but Diane is a strong journalist and I think she will be an excellent anchor. However, ABC really needs to take a look at GMA. George Stephanopolis is not cutting it in his new role as co-anchor with Robin. I hate to see GMA go down the drain but I think it will with George at the helm. Too bad. It is the only morning show that I like to
watch.
rmbltmbl

Steve, I was wondering if you(or the Daily Show) were going to do a story on this.. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-bates/2009/12/22/cnns-erica-hill-cites-networks-senate-health-care-poll-totals-110-percen — CNN’s Erica Hill Cites Network’s Senate Health Care Poll, Totals 110 Percent .. WHEN..

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/when-120-makes-sense-fox-friends-defends-poll-display/ — When 120% Makes Sense: Fox & Friends Defends Poll Display ..

Hate to be off-topic.. but we’ll have to wait and see.
adamac

The newscast seemed fine and Diane seemed comfortable, but I was a bit peeved by the Brian Ross teaser. Without any context it just seemed cheap, dirty, and unprofessional. It was like, here’s a little juicy nugget of scandal for you, but haha, you’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out what it even is.

selenium