FTVLive

View Original

GMA Looking to Add 3rd Hour?

Good Morning America is looking to take the Today Show on even later in the morning.

ABC is looking at taking on a 3rd hour to their number 1 rated morning show. 

“GMA,” which now airs weekdays from 7-9 a.m., wants to add an hour to compete more effectively with its morning NBC rival, a source tells the NY Daily News. “Today” goes for four hours, 7-11 a.m., the final hour being Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb’s wine-filled, peppy chatfest.

The Daily News says the permanent addition of “Live! With Kelly and Michael” co-host Michael Strahan to “GMA” is a minor move in the potentially seismic plan to reconfigure the network’s morning schedule.

While it could take a few years to line up, ABC is building a deeper bench of talent, such as Strahan, to deploy in a longer morning show.

“Clearly this is way out on the horizon and may not happen if the planets don’t align just right,” our network insider said. “But it’s a plan.”

A second source tells the Daily News, “They’ve always wanted a third hour. It’s just that the opportunity to actually pull it off may finally be on the way.”

To make this work, the syndicated “Live! With Kelly & Michael” would be pushed back an hour from its longtime 9 a.m. slot after “Rachael Ray” wraps up its 10th season in 2016, when her current syndication deal is up.

If Ray’s ratings stay strong, and she signs a new deal to stay on the air, her show could still be moved – into the time slot now occupied by “The View,” which will be heading into its 18th season this fall without creator Barbara Walters.

It remains to be seen whether co-host Lara Spencer — who is contracted for $2 million a year by ABC — will make it to the “GMA” expansion phase, if it happens down the line.

“ABC was considering Maria Menounos for a similar ‘GMA’ role,” our source said.

And while visiting New York last week, Menounos filled in for Kelly Ripa on “Live!” twice, as she was on vacation.

A rep for ABC tells us a “GMA” expansion is “complete fiction,” saying the 9 a.m. hour is a local time period, not a network one, which means that almost half of ABC’s stations have syndicated shows at that time with contracts that extend for several years.