AOL Users Speak: Chris Cuomo Should Host Good Morning America

As Mediaite reported last week, George Stephanopoulos came out of the blocks a strong contender for the Good Morning America anchor slot opened up when Diane Sawyer left to host World News.

But lately, Chris Cuomo‘s name has repeatedly popped up in discussions of who should anchor GMA. And over at AOL, he appears to be the slight favorite for the job among readers.

In an article titled “George Stephanopoulos Should Replace Diane Sawyer on ‘Good Morning America,'” an AOL Television poll of more than 60,000 readers confounded the headline. Even though author Gary Susman wrote that “In general, we’d give the edge to Stephanopoulos; he tends to be less stiff (and easier on the eyes) than Cuomo,” Cuomo edged out Stephanopoulos as the reader favorite by almost 1,000 votes.

Even more surprisingly, Cuomo is currently the “top celeb” by buzz on AOL’s Television page. Yes, that’s “celeb” and not just news personality; he not only beats Diane Sawyer and The View‘s Elisabeth Hasselbeck, but also former Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless and celebutante/”Armenian princess” Kim Kardashian. Stephanopoulos comes in at #19.

These results should be taken with a grain of salt. AOL is, after all, but one site, and user polls like this are sometimes subject to tampering, though it seems odd to contemplate the likes of 4chan mounting a passionate campaign over Good Morning America (and if they did, the margin would probably be bigger).

In Howard Kurtz’s fascinating Washington Post column on the future of GMA, Kurtz surmises that even though Stephanopoulos is by some measures the network favorite for the anchor slot, Cuomo is more comfortable with light morning show fare and has a good rapport with current co-host Robin Roberts. Taken together, it’s fair to say that Stephanopoulos is not the celestially preordained candidate for the slot that he may have appeared to be a week or two ago.