Desperate ABC News ‘Retitles’ David Muir and George Stephanopoulos Shows To Hide Sinking Ratings Amid YouTube Blackout

ABC News engaged in a secret trick to disguise the plummeting ratings of its flagship morning show and evening news – a ploy known as “retitling” – amid the ongoing contract feud between its corporate parent, Disney, and YouTubeTV. ABC News programs, already in decline, have been blacked out on YouTube TV, the third-largest multi-channel provider in America, for 14 days so far as Disney and Google, which owns YouTube, feud over how much Google must pay for ABC. Carriage disputes between cable and content providers are not uncommon, but this dispute has dragged on for an unusually long time, in part because of Google’s wealth and power.Cutting off YouTube TV’s 10 million subscribers from ABC’s programs appears to be having an embarrassing impact on the network.Last week, NBC’s “Nightly News” beat out ABC’s “World News Tonight,” hosted by David Muir, in the coveted 25-54-year-old demographic. That marked the first time NBC’s nightly news program beat out its ABC competition since Tom Llamas took over as the host of the “Nightly News.”The “Nightly News” drew in an average of 929,000 viewers in the key demo, while “World News Tonight” brought in an average of 883,000. In another blow to ABC, “Good Morning America” – cohosted by a former top Clinton aide, George Stephanopoulos, and which the network has boasted as the most-watched morning show for 14 years straight – fell to second place in the ratings behind NBC’s “Today.”Last week, “Today” received an average of 2.81 million viewers while “Good Morning America” received 2.72 million average viewers. This came just as “GMA” was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a lavish party for advertisers.Amid the ratings plunge, ABC “retitled” episodes of “World News Tonight” and “Good Morning America,” Variety reported.The move – in which a letter is removed from the show title that’s distributed to TV listing services – is not unheard of and has been used to manipulate Nielsen ratings to disguise a show’s ratings plunge by ensuring that the “retitled” episodes are not included in Nielsen’s analysis of a program’s other episodes. Earlier this year, CBS News “retitled” episodes of the “CBS Evening News” as it faced a ratings plunge following a botched revamp of the show, which saw the network implement an unusual dual-anchor format, hosted by lesser-known hosts Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson, that didn’t cover major news stories The YouTube debacle may be masking other issues ABC News is struggling with. “GMA” ratings have been in steady decline as its co-host, George Stephanopoulos, has been embroiled in ballooning ethics and bias scandals. Most recently, he was called out by the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, for hypocrisy in his aggressive defense of Democrats for refusing to reopen government when, as a Clinton aide, he’d accused Republicans of being “terrorists” for doing the same thing during the 1995 shutdown. While ABC’s ratings are falling, the blackout is costing Disney an estimated $30 million a week, according to an analysis by Morgan Stanley. The declining ratings come as YouTube TV and Disney are negotiating over the costs of its bundle of Disney’s various networks, such as ESPN, ABC, and the Disney Channel. YouTube TV has signaled it does not want to pay for Disney’s lesser-known channels. TV providers have accused Disney of bundling its channels to extract a higher price. As the blackout drags on, there has been speculation that Disney’s quarterly earnings report might put pressure on the company to cave to YouTube TV. On Thursday, Disney released its earnings report from its linear TV division, which showed its earnings plunged 21 percent from last year to $391 million. After the report was released, Disney’s stock dropped more than 9 percent. Despite the speculation that the report would lead to pressure to renew with YouTube TV, the chief financial officer of Disney, Hugh Johnston, told CNBC that executives “built a hedge” into its forecasts and that Disney is “ready to go as long as they want.”ABC News declined to comment.

Desperate ABC News ‘Retitles’ David Muir and George Stephanopoulos Shows To Hide Sinking Ratings Amid YouTube Blackout

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