ABC

ABC’s “20/20″ and NBC’s “Dateline” will go head-to-head Friday night with reports on the same topic: the story of Josh Powell, the Utah man who killed himself and his two young sons in an explosion on Sunday. Powell had been implicated in the disappearance of his wife Susan in late 2009.

On “Dateline,” Keith Morrison talks with Powell’s in-laws, Charles and Judy Cox, as well as his sister, Jennifer Powell. The “20/20″ report, anchored by Chris Cuomo, will focus on the events leading up to the tragedy. Jennifer Powell sat for an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier this week. And today Cuomo talked with the social worker who dropped off the Powell boys at the home last Sunday.

“He caught my eye, his shoulders were slumped. He had a sheepish look,” Hall told ABC News. “He just shrugged his shoulders and slammed the door.”

Both shows air on Friday at 10pmET. We’ll have the overnight ratings for you on Saturday.

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After Disney’s earnings news — which showed a drop in revenue and operating income at the broadcast division — and the reports that the company is looking to partner with Univision for a 24-hour cable news network, CNNMoney contributor Cyrus Sanati, asks, “Is it time for Disney to finally banish ABC from the Magic Kingdom?” Sanati thinks the idea of an ABC News-Univision channel “could become yet another albatross around Disney’s neck.” And he takes out the long knives for ABC News:

ABC News is but a shell of what it used to be and its ratings have plummeted as more Americans get their news from other mediums, like the internet. Executives inside ABC News are being shuffled around in an attempt to breathe “new life” into the news division. The answer, unfortunately, has been to appeal to the lowest common denominator in a cheap attempt to lure in viewers. So stories like “how male porn stars are trying to cater to women,” are more likely to lead the network’s iconic news daily Nightline than a hard news topic considered “boring.” The end seems near.

It looks like ABC News anchor Barbara Walters is planning a profile on graffiti artists David Choe.

Choe famously took Facebook stock in lieu of cash when he decorated the social networking site’s office back in 2005. That stock is now worth more than $200 million.

Walters posted photos on her Facebook page of her and Choe on the streets, with Choe spray-painting the words “Babs, don’t make me cry” on a wall and, uh, Walters herself  (see right). BABS-1, as Choe refers to her on his Facebook page, even tagged some wall herself, as this picture shows.

Update: The interview will run Thursday on “Good Morning America” and “Nightline.”

The news that Disney and Univision are in talks to possibly launch a cable news channel targeting English-speaking Hispanics shouldn’t come as a surprise. Univision has already announced its intention to launch a 24-hour news channel, and ABC News has long been looking for some sort of partner to help amortize its costs.

But here are two other reasons why the companies may be planning the channel: Hispanic news programming skews much younger than the traditional TV news outlets, and a Hispanic-targeted network will have an easier time gaining cable distribution, the bane of every network executive’s existence.

It is no secret that TV news viewers skew old… often very old. Your average Fox News viewer is 65, CNN viewer is 63 and MSNBC viewer is 59. Only in TV news would a 50-year-old qualify as someone in the “younger viewer” 25-54 demographic.

Among young Hispanics, however, news seems to be much more popular. As we have noted, Univision’s nightly newscast has more viewers age 18-34 than every network newscast, save for “NBC Nightly News.” During many weeks, Univision even tops NBC in that demo.

In other words, young Hispanics may be more inclined to watch TV news than other young viewers.

With regard to distribution:

Read more

After the news broke last night that Disney and Univision were in talks to create a 24-hour cable news channel, we heard from a longtime cable news executive who reminded us that ABC News has been here before.

In 1982, ABC partnered with Westinghouse Broadcasting for something called the Satellite News Channel. Based in Stamford, CT, the channel produced a rotating newscast every 20 minutes with the slogan, “Give us 18 minutes, we’ll give you the world.” It was meant to compete with the 2-year-old CNN and the 6-month-old CNN2 (now HLN). It went on the air on June 21, 1982 but failed because it couldn’t get decent cable carriage. It went off the air October 27, 1983, was bought by CNN and shut down. What do you think of the Disney/Univision idea?

As ABC News explores the idea of a 24-hour cable news channel, its digital arm, which includes the 24-hour ABC News Now, just hit a milestone.

For the first time ever, for the month of January, ABC News Digital streamed more than 100 million videos. The game-changer for ABCNews.com has been the partnership with Yahoo! — which puts ABC News in direct competition with CNN.com, which claims to be the #1 broadcast news website. (CNN averaged 101 million monthly video streams in 2011.)

January marks ABC News Digital’s most trafficked month in history with more than 414 million page views to various ABC News sites as well as ABC News stories on Yahoo! News. The online site for “Good Morning America” tripled its monthly traffic and has grown +25% each month since it became part of the Yahoo! domain in October.

Fifteen years after exploring the idea of a 24-hour news channel, ABC News may soon find itself back in the cable game. The Wall Street Journal is reporting ABC’s parent The Walt Disney Co. and Univision Communications Inc. are in talks to create an English language news channel… and it could be launched before the November elections.

The new channel would plunge Disney’s ABC News more directly into the fractious cable-news wars, competing alongside Time Warner Inc’s CNN, News Corp.’s Fox News and Comcast Corp.’s MSNBC. And it would mark a big strategic shift for Univision, which since its beginnings five decades ago has been defined by its Spanish broadcasts, but which will now compete for English speakers.

WSJ reports the talks have been lead by ABC News President Ben Sherwood and Univision Networks President Cesar Conde. ABC News is not commenting on the report.

The deal looks good on paper. It will begin to amortize the costs of ABC News, (while creating many long days for ABC Newsers.) Disney has proven cable clout. And Univision, which boasts its own news division and studios in Miami, provides an attractive and growing young audience: 1-in-5 American schoolchildren is Hispanic, 1-in-4 newborns is Hispanic.

Univision Communications CEO Randy Falco has been here before. He was president of NBC Broadcasting when his network, along with Microsoft, launched MSNBC in 1996. ABC News abandoned plans in May of that year to launch its own news channel after NBC and News Corp. ramped up plans for MSNBC and Fox News Channel. Falco was also instrumental in NBC’s acquisition of Univision competitor Telemundo in 2002.

GOP candidate for president Newt Gingrich, who has gotten some significant mileage out of the televised debates this primary cycle, may not be finished debating. But the networks that hand over precious air time, may be. Toward the end of today’s Washington Post story on Gingrich‘s plans going forward, there is a line about the Gingrich campaign looking toward more debates.

His strategists are also lobbying two networks — Fox News and ABC — to add debates to the schedule between now and March.

But those networks say that’s not the case. Fox News tells us no one from Gingrich’s team has lobbied them. And we’re told it’s unlikely Fox News will have another debate for the remainder of the GOP primary season. ABC tells us no one has lobbied them either, but a standing invitation is out to the candidates to debate on “This Week.”

The next debates are tentatively set for February 22, in Arizona on CNN;
March 1 in Georgia also on CNN; and March 5 in California on NBC.

Miguel Marquez, late of ABC News, will rejoin CNN as a Los Angeles-based correspondent, TVNewser has learned.

Until November, Marquez was a London-based correspondent for ABC News. He’d joined ABC from CNN in 2005. In his first CNN stint Marquez was an anchor at Headline News based at CNN in Atlanta. Marquez joined CNN in April 2003 from FOX affiliate KSAZ in Phoenix, where he was a reporter. Before that Marquez worked at WNBC in New York. He got his start at CBS News as a national desk assistant for the “CBS Evening News,” “48 Hours” and “60 Minutes.”

With “Tonight Show” and “Late Show” in reruns last week, it was an easy win for “Nightline.”

Season to date, “Nightline” remains #1 in late-night among Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49.

ABC’s ratings are based on a 25-minute broadcast, while CBS and NBC are based on approximately :50 minutes (prior to the final national commercial break of each program).

• Week of January 23

Show	Network	Total Viewers	A25-54	A18-49
Nightline	ABC	3.67M	1.41M	1.07M
Tonight Show	NBC	3.35M	1.36M	1.03M
Late Show	CBS	2.83M	1.16M	888K