World News Now
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"More insomniacs get their news from World News Now" vanity card; clear parody of the late 1990s "More Americans get their news from ABC News" bumpers. |
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A pre-CNN Anderson Cooper says "talk to the hand". |
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Thalia Assuras and Mark Mullen have a laugh after Elmo collapses in front of a Menorah. |
World News Now (often abbreviated as
WNN) is
ABC's overnight news program. Its presentation is typically lighthearted, irreverent and comical. Several well-known news personalities, including
Thalia Assuras,
Aaron Brown,
Andrea Stassou and
Anderson Cooper have
anchored WNN early in their careers.
Generally watched by
insomniacs (in the late 1990s, its slogan was "More insomniacs get their news from World News Now than from any other source."), college students, and parents of infants, it has featured serious as well as offbeat news interspersed with odd features such as the "World News Polka" played by
Barry Mitchell on the
accordion, video footage of dancing
camels, and laughter coming from off camera.
Weather predictions are made for obscure and exotic places around the world, some of which have ties to the show for various reasons. It also often replays clips from
Nightline,
World News with Charles Gibson, and other
ABC News programming. It has been a training ground for several young up and coming
news anchors (See List Below) which eventually go on to higher profile network or local affiliate positions. The show is also unique for its interactive segments, some of which pioneered the email communication that is commonly used on newscasts today. The ABC News WNN Message board has been known offer to viewers questions and comments from the anchors themselves, during the course of the show.
Of note is that World News Now was used as the prototype for
Fred, ABC's plan to run a cable news channel. The plan was floated in 1995 and was later dropped due to issues with cable carriage, including competition with the recently started
MSNBC and
Fox News Channel.
In
1994, World News Now was the first television program to be broadcast on the
Internet, using the
CU-SeeMe interface. The program was interactive with the few viewers with Internet access at the time (mainly college students). Victor Dorff, a producer of
WNN at the time, arranged for viewers to send web cam images of themselves, which were broadcast in several interactive segments. [
1] World News Now was also one of the first shows to webcast; between
1999 and
2001, free live streaming was on the ABC News web site. In
2005, the free behind-the-scenes webcast returned.
The show is produced and airs live in three half-hour segments from 2:00AM ET through 3:30AM ET, Monday Morning-Friday Morning. At 3:30ET, many local affiliates rebroadcast the show (in some cases multiple times) until 4:30AM local time at which time
ABC World News This Morning is aired.
Due to its informative and yet irreverent treatment of the news, WNN has numerous fans. Some of its fans record the show and use it as a substitute to early morning news broadcasts. There are also several fan sites.
WNN is currently anchored by
Ron Corning and
Taina Hernandez.
* Top Story
* Weather
* Sports
* The Skinny
* News Notes
* Morning Papers (which is announced with the cumbersome voice-over "
World News Now presents: your morning papers!")
In a rotating fashion, at the halfway point in each half hour, a special segment is presented. Some examples include:
*
Nightline - The first minutes of the primary topic of each evening's nightline
* This Week - (Only on Monday Mornings) The "Roundtable" segment, a debate of
pundits from both sides of politics, is featured.
* ABC News Video Vault - Somewhat of a "This Day in History" segment, a story from a given date in the past, having some relevance to the present is shown.
* American Landscape - A major national or international story, seen from the perspective of a local station that covers it.
* Leah At The Movies -
People Magazine's
Leah Rozen gives her top picks for new releases of the week.
* Interviews - One of the anchors interviews a newsmaker or celebrity
* Gadget Guy -
Dick DeBartolo talks about and demonstrates the newest gadgets and technology
*The final segment usually consists of the anchors discussing the news, their lives, or the day in general. Some half hours feature a discussion of headlines and smaller stories appearing in the new day's papers from around the country (Similar to the segment on
CNN's defunct
Newsnight as
Aaron Brown and producer David Bohrman brought said segment from his WNN tenure) or of course, Friday Morning's
Polka, sung by Barry Mitchell.
*When an anchor of numerous broadcasts finally leaves, a ceremony of sorts is held on their last broadcast. As the first few anchors moved on, cardboard cutouts were placed in the rafters of the studio for the "Anchor Hall of Fame". Today, this is done with a graphics sequence of a head-shot of the anchor moved into a graphic of the original set's rafters and monitors.
Other anchors include:
*
Asha Blake*
JuJu Chang*
Liz Cho*
Anderson Cooper (
1995 to
1999)
*
Tamala Edwards*
Sheilah Kast*
Derek McGinty*
David Muir*
Alison Stewart*
Jim Sciutto*
Gigi Stone*
Andrea Canning*
ABC World News Now*
World News Now FAQ
