America This Morning (formerly ABC World News This Morning prior to 11/13/06 news_america_this_morning_47256.asp" target="_blank">http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/abc/world_news_america_this_morning_47256.asp) is a 30 minute newscast offered by _ABC News to ABC stations. It features the day's headlines, live reports from Washington, D.C., a sports package from ESPNews, and a regular money segment called MoneyScope. It is broadcast at 4:30 AM Eastern time and as early as 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time in some markets and is intended to be shown prior to (or in place of) an ABC affiliate's local morning news and as a compliment to Good Morning America. It debuted on July 5, 1982, in its early months under the title of ABC News This Morning. The newscast celebrated its 20th anniversary during the summer of 2002.
The program was initially 60-minutes in length and anchored by Steve Bell and Kathleen Sullivan at the network's Washington, DC newsroom-studio (as was most ABC News programming at the time). The program moved to ABC's New York headquarters in 1989.
Other past anchors include:
Forrest Sawyer and Paula Zahn (1987/88 - 1989) (from Washington, and later New York) Paula Zahn (until 1990) and Mike Schneider (1989 - 1992) (from New York)
Additional anchors have included (prior to 1992): Morton Dean, Jeanne Meserve, Edie Magnus and Jed Duvall, among others.
In mid-1992, production of World News This Morning was combined with that of successful overnight newscast World News Now with those anchors pulling double duty. Initially, some elements from World News Now were brought over to World News This Morning including "Morning Papers" and that program's Yanni-composed theme music (played over the original World News This Morning opening graphics) as well as the laid-back attitude.
At some point in 1993, the original Score-composed theme was brought back and most elements of World News Now were dropped as the program again became more serious in tone.
As local stations expanded their morning newscasts, World News This Morning was shorted to first two separate 30-minute newscasts and later to the current, single, 30-minute newscast (which, if an affiliate does not provide morning news, can be repeated back-to-back between 4:30am ET and 7:00am ET)
