Yet Another Daytime Drama Rocks Disney/ABC

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What is it with ABC’s handling of its daytime schedule? Looking back over the last ten years the words “staggering ineptitude” come to mind, but never more than in recent days with the dust-up involving Kelly Ripa, arguably ABC’s most popular daytime star and a veteran of its daytime programming since she joined the network’s soap opera “All My Children” in 1990. For the record, she was also a part of ABC’s primetime lineup from 2003-2006 as executive producer and co-star of the sitcom “Hope & Faith” (which was, in its own way, a promotional vehicle of sorts for ABC with its proclivity toward featuring actors and personalities from the network’s daytime and primetime shows in guest roles, some of them recurring).

(Editor's Note: For another take on this situation, check out the latest Stuart Elliott Report.)

The media frenzy surrounding Disney’s and ABC’s shabby treatment of Ripa in the matter of her “Live with Kelly and Michael” co-star Michael Strahan’s impending move from that show over to a full-time position at “Good Morning America” has been so intense it eclipsed the other huge television story of the moment, the return of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” (The cover pictured below from the always-dependable New York Post says it all.)

It ain’t over yet. Strahan will be gone in three weeks. What happens then? Among the rumors that are creating a media firestorm of their own: Disney/ABC would like to cancel “Live” and expand its weakening “GMA” into a four-hour daily program so that it might be more competitive with NBC’s resurgent “Today” show, which runs daily from 7-11 a.m. ET. (That’s only a rumor, folks. But it’s a hot one.)

On Tuesday’s edition of “Live” a somewhat nervous but unquestionably formidable Ripa took the stage after returning from a “break” of four days (three of them a planned long-weekend wedding anniversary trip with her husband and sometime guest co-host Mark Consuelos). She thanked her fans for their very vocal support during this time and then subtly and with great dignity stuck it to Disney/ABC.

“Our parent company has assured me that ‘Live’ is a priority,” she told viewers. (Funny the way the parent company has handled a “priority,"> 

Ed Martin

Ed Martin is the chief television and content critic for MediaVillage.  He has written about television and internet programming for several Myers publications since 2000, including The Myers Report, The Myers Programming Report, MediaBizBloggers a… read more