They’ve announced a strategic online news alliance that will blend ABC News’ newsgathering and lineup of anchors and reporters with Yahoo! News’ audience, depth and breadth of content. The online news alliance will deliver content to more than 100 million U.S. users each month. The deal has ABC News becoming the premier news provider on Yahoo! News. Teams will co-produce coverage for major news events and will have integrated bureaus in New York, DC and LA. ABC News content will be integrated throughout the Yahoo! News network, including the Yahoo! front page.
ABC News will maintain editorial control over ABCNews.com and GoodMorningAmerica.com, and Yahoo! News will maintain editorial control of all its sites. The new GoodMorningAmerica.com site is powered by Yahoo!’s global technology platform.
Yahoo! and ABC Sales organizations will create premium online video ad opportunities and a variety of integrated sponsorships. ABC will lead sales during the Upfront selling season and Yahoo! will manage sales throughout the rest of the year.
On 10/3, www.GoodMorningAmerica.com launched on Yahoo! along with three new online-first video series ABC News anchors. They launched 10/3 and include “Newsmakers,” which features ABC News anchors like Diane Sawyer, George Stephanopoulos, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Robin Roberts and others interviewing global leaders and celebrities, starting with Stephanopoulos’ sitdown with President Barack Obama. The other two new video series are “Around the World with Christiane Amanpour,” in which the global reporter and “This Week” anchor offers analysis and context on the international news headlines of the day, and “This Could Be Big,” anchored by Bill Weir, which spotlights hot new technology products and explores innovation.
RBR-TVBR observation: Looks like a good marriage of content and distribution that combines two powerful media teams, reporters and editors. This is yet another content pact with established marquee media. We recently saw the marriage of Yahoo! Sports with Gow Broadcasting/Sporting News Radio to become Yahoo! Sports Radio. It’s a bit interesting that Disney, which owns ABC, ABC News and ESPN, would pact with Yahoo!, given its Yahoo! Sports Radio competes with ESPN Radio—the lines are becoming very blurred between online and terrestrial/traditional media content and they are bound to bump into each other.
