The networks are preparing for extended coverage throughout the day and CBS News has already scheduled a primetime special at 9pmET anchored by Scott Pelley. Also, “Evening News” will be expanded to an hour.

More: “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” will expand to a full hour tonight. “Rock Center” will dedicate the full live hour (10pmET/9pmCT) to the investigation.

More: ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” will also be an hour. Elizabeth Vargas anchors a special edition of “20/20″ from Boston tonight.

More: Fox News is preempting “The Five” today, instead Bill Hemmer will anchor the hour from Boston. Shepard Smith will anchor his shows from Watertown and Greta Van Susteren will anchor from 10pm-Midnight also from Watertown.

More: CNN’s will be live until at least 1am, starting at 7pm, in this order: Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan, Cooper, Burnett, Morgan.

Developing…

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Immediately after she was released, Knox and her family were inundated with interview requests.

As expected, Knox was not offered payment for the interview, but rather maximum exposure as she prepares to promote her book, which comes out the same day as the ABC News interview. In addition to the primetime special, portions of the Knox interview (and mentions of the book) will air on “ABC World News,” “Good Morning America,” “Nightline” and ABC’s digital platforms, expanding its reach exponentially.

While Sawyer is getting the big interview, it was correspondent Elizabeth Vargas who did most of the legwork in Italy for ABC, and led the network’s coverage of the case.

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“David has been an authoritative presence at the anchor desk, most recently anchoring nearly five hours straight as we learned of the horrible events unfolding in Newtown,” writes ABC News president Ben Sherwood in a note to staff. “I’m delighted he’s bringing his ample storytelling skills to Friday nights in primetime, where Elizabeth and the team are delivering the biggest audience in years.”

Sherwood also made mention of Cuomo’s departure. “Chris has been a unique voice at the anchor desk and a valued colleague and friend. We’ll miss his energy, commitment and humor and we wish him the very best in this new venture.”

• After the jump, David Muir gives MediabistroTV‘s Cubes a tour of ABC News HQ.

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On ABC, weekday anchor George Stephanopoulos will anchor “Good Morning America” from Newtown. Elizabeth Vargas will join him from New York. ABC’s Josh Elliott, Amy Robach and Dan Harris will report from the scene in Newtown.

NBC’s “Today” will also have the weekday team in, with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie anchoring from Newtown. Lester Holt, Erica Hill, Ann Curry and Willie Geist will contribute to the program.

Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis will anchor “CBS This Morning Saturday” from Newtown. CBS will also preempt “48 Hours” Saturday night for a special report on the shooting at 10pmET.

Fox News will be live at 5amET with “Fox & Friends First.” An expanded edition of “Fox & Friends” will air from 6-10amET, and will be simulcast on FBN. The 10am-noon business block will be preempted for live coverage anchored by Jon Scott and Jenna Lee. Scott will also host an expanded two-hour “Fox Report” beginning at 6pmET. Mike Huckabee‘s program will be live from NYC at 8pmET and Jeanine Pirro and Geraldo Rivera will host their primetime shows from Newtown.

MSNBC will focus on the shooting during regularly-scheduled programming and will be live until at least 7pmET Saturday night.

On CNN, Ali Velshi and Jon Berman will anchor from 6-9amET. Soledad O’Brien will anchor from 9-11amET, Wolf Blitzer will anchor from 11am-1pmET and Don Lemon will anchor from 1-3pmET. O’Brien will anchor from 3-5pmET, and Blitzer and Kate Bolduan will anchor from 5-8pmET. Anderson Cooper will anchor from 8-9pmET,  Lemon and O’Brien will anchor from 9-10pmET, and Cooper will take over again from 10-11pmET.

On HLN, Nancy Grace will host a special on the shooting tonight at 8pmET. Dr. Drew Pinsky will host a special live hour at 9pmET.

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Anchors and contributors will vary day to day, but Josh Elliott, Lara Spencer, Sam Champion, Elizabeth Vargas and Amy Robach will all take turns hosting.

“This is a chance for our gang to put their feet up and bring everyone backstage right after we get off the air,” said “GMA” senior EP Tom Cibrowski in a statement. “We are going to have a great time pulling back the curtain a bit.”

The content of the after-show isn’t entirely clear, though it sounds like it will expand on stories mentioned in the TV program itself. “Isn’t it too bad there is just two hours of “GMA” in your mornings?” says a voiceover in an ad for the show. The Barnes & Noble Nook has signed on as the launch sponsor of the digital series.

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“I remember looking out the window around 8:30 at night, and all of a sudden, we just saw this,” DuBreuil says. “It seemed like we were in a national forest where you see all those fires with timbers flying around. It was off in the distance and I wasn’t thinking this is going to affect us. But as each hour progressed, the storm, the fire was just coming closer and closer and God, you [Keturah] looked at me and said, ‘We’re getting the hell out of here.’”

“I just remember when I first saw that fire thinking we have water on one side of the house, we have a TON of water on the back side of the house, and we have a fire that is inevitably going to get closer because of all of the winds,” says Gray “I was just like, ‘What do we do? Where do we even begin? Do we take this route or this route?’ I was so worried about the people that I knew, because we had been down that beach earlier that afternoon. There were a lot of people in that line of fire, and I just didn’t know how they were going to get out.”

Elizabeth Vargas‘s story, including video shot by DuBreuil and Gray, after the jump…

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There were mic issues, so Hanks had to hold a handheld microphone for the interview, making it somewhat awkward from the start. After showing a clip from his new movie “Cloud Atlas” at 8:25 AM, Elizabeth Vargas asked Hanks to speak in the accent he used in the clip. “Most of it is swear words,” Hanks warned, “well if you say it in an accent like that they won’t notice,” Vargas replied.

Hanks, with the deep accent, said “I want people to fucking…” before catching what he said and generating an instant apology from Vargas.

“I am so sorry, I have slipped into a brand of acting, I have never done that before,” Hanks said. “I want to apologize to the kids in America that are watching right now, and let me say that the next time I am on ‘Good Morning America’ there will be a seven second delay.”

After finishing the interview, Hanks looked to the camera, and channeled his inner Richard Nixon, quipping:

“Once again, my apologies to the people of the United States of America.”

A spokesperson for ABC News says : “This morning Tom Hanks accidently used an expletive during a live interview on GMA with Elizabeth Vargas. They both immediately apologized on air, and the show was corrected for all subsequent feeds.”

Video after the jump, via NowThis News

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ABC’s on-screen graphic read “exclusive” and the voice over said “she’s only talking to GMA.” 

But NBC’s Michelle Kosinski also interviewed James about the success of the book. And in introducing the story, Matt Lauer pointed out that NBC’s corporate cousin Universal Pictures had secured the movie rights.

• Related | GalleyCat: E.L. James Makes TIME 100

Elizabeth Vargas did the sit-down with James for GMA. And to the show’s credit, they didn’t blare it as EXCLUSIVE. But apparently the primetime promo producer didn’t get the message.

Both “Today and “GMA” ran their interviews at the exact same time, at 8:19am. “CBS This Morning” also mentioned how the steamy book is also boosting sales at sex shops. Gayle King reported customers “are asking for some of the products described in the book.”

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The hour-long series will debut Tuesday, January 24 at 10 PM, and will be hosted by author Wes Moore. Moore will be joined by ABC News correspondents Elizabeth Vargas, Bob Woodruff, Jay Schadler, Bill Weir and JuJu Chang in presenting the stories, which focus on amazing and unusual people and events.

A spokesperson for OWN says that the series will combine new segments, as well as re-purposed segments from the “Beyond Belief” series on ABC.

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Among the ABC News talent on hand Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, Sam Champion, Lara Spencer, Josh Elliott, Cynthia McFadden, Bill Weir, Terry Moran, Bianna Golodryga, Dan Harris, Ron Claiborne, Chris Cuomo, Elizabeth Vargas, Bob Woodruff, John Quinones, David Muir, Brian Ross, Jake Tapper and Rob Nelson.

Expect to see the photos in marketing a promotional materials on air and online, soon.

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Specifically, Knox argues that while ABC News provided its producer’s hotel room for his daughters to stay in during the trial, at no time did the producer “babysit” the children. He writes that a CBS News producer also provided a hotel room for them to stay in during the day (a claim CBS denies, below), and that an NBC News producer offered them a room to use if they needed one, (NBC’s response, also below):

One of ABC’s producers, Nikki Battiste, was very kind to offer to let the girls stay in her hotel room during court sessions. However, the NY Post article refers to this kind gesture as “babysitting”. This is an outright lie, as at no point in time did Ms. Battiste stay in the room and babysit my younger children. She was accomplishing her required job functions in the courtroom and during shoots with Elizabeth Vargas and various other talent. I would like to clarify again that at “no point in time” was Ms. Battiste EVER babysitting my younger daughters.

Further clarification to this NY Post article is the mis-information related to the other networks, NBC and CBS. During one of the morning court sessions, Ashley

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Elliott: The return of Amanda Knox happened moments before air time. I’m getting ready first to discuss her departure on the outskirts of Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport. But look at what is happening behind the scene. A backpack. And look at my field producer:

Vargas: Yep. That’s me.

And while Vargas was talking with the control room in New York, giving cues to Elliott in Rome, the producer — who you see wearing the backpack and holding the camera — is Rich McHugh. He learned how to use the TVU technology on the way to Rome. He called ABC’s News Acquisition Center (NAC) in New York for a run-thru before GMA went on the air Tuesday, and in McHugh’s words, “It worked! Amazing.” Jon Meyersohn, who is Vargas’s producer, snapped the photo.

Video after the jump…

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Lester Holt will anchor from Perugia, Italy, on NBC. Special reports from ABC and CBS will both originate from New York, with correspondents reporting from Perugia — on ABC, Diane Sawyer anchors with Elizabeth Vargas contributing, and on CBS, Bob Schieffer anchors with Peter Van Sant contributing.

>Update: All three networks went to their respective special reports around 3:45 p.m., shortly before the jury overturned the murder conviction. Knox, now a free woman, is reportedly headed back to the U.S. CBS wrapped up their special report at 3:52 p.m., followed by NBC at 3:55 p.m. and ABC at 3:57 p.m.

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Sawyer’s interview with Elizabeth Vargas after the jump…

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