NewsNation, the fledgling Chicago-based cable news network, is adding ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams to its prime-time lineup and launching its long-anticipated morning show in September.
Abrams, a veteran journalist who previously served as co-anchor of ABC’s “Nightline,” will produce and host a one-hour show weeknights at 7 p.m., bringing a high-profile name and a lengthy on-air resume to NewsNation.
“Dan Abrams is the epitome of the pure, common-sense approach to journalism envisioned when NewsNation launched last September,” Michael Corn, NewsNation’s president of news, said in a release.
The new morning show puts NewsNation into competition with “Fox & Friends,” MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and CNN’s “New Day,” the latest effort to establish the former WGN America as a major cable news player.
Former ABC News correspondent and anchor Adrienne Bankert will host NewsNation’s “Morning in America” weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Corn, who took the programming helm of NewsNation in May after the abrupt resignation of former WGN news director Jennifer Lyons, spent the last seven years as senior executive producer of ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” long the top-rated morning news show on broadcast TV.
Both shows will begin airing Sept. 27.
A previously announced shake-up of the NewsNation prime-time lineup debuts Monday. The network is rebranding “Early Edition” as “Rush Hour,” launching “On Balance,” a one-hour platform for former Fox News anchor Leland Vittert, and reducing its signature evening newscast, “NewsNation Prime,” to just one hour.
Vittert, whose show is set to air at 7 p.m. weeknights, will shift to a new slot when Abrams starts, NewsNation spokesman Gary Weitman said.
Abrams may be the biggest name yet to join NewsNation after 24 years on broadcast and cable news, starting as a legal correspondent on NBC News in 1997. He went on to host several shows on co-owned MSNBC before joining ABC in 2011.
“Joining NewsNation is a welcome, natural fit for me,” Abrams said in the news release. “Too much of cable news is polluted by partisanship with shows focused on indoctrinating viewers, unabashedly cheering for one side or another.”
The addition of Abrams and the morning show are part of a gradually unfolding plan to turn NewsNation into a 24/7 cable news network, with 55 hours of live news, analysis and talk each week.
WGN America launched “NewsNation” as a three-hour nightly newscast Sept. 1, pledging to deliver unbiased reporting and take a bite out of the more established cable news networks. Nearly one year later, NewsNation is still struggling to find an audience.
NewsNation, which reaches 75 million homes, ranked 104th among all cable networks in prime-time during the week ending July 11 with an average of 33,000 viewers, just behind the Cowboy Channel, according to Nielsen.
Fox News ranked first in prime-time with an average of more than 2 million viewers, followed by MSNBC at nearly 1.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. CNN ranked 6th in prime-time with 833,000 viewers.
In March, the network rebranded as NewsNation and expanded its prime-time lineup to five hours, adding veteran TV anchor Ashleigh Banfield with a 9 p.m. news/talk show titled “Banfield” and shifting “NewsNation Prime” anchor Joe Donlon to a one-hour solo gig called “The Donlon Report” at 6 p.m.
Nexstar bought WGN America in 2019 as part of its $4.1 billion acquisition of Chicago-based Tribune Media — the former broadcast parent of Tribune Publishing — creating the nation’s largest local TV station group and moving WGN’s TV, radio and cable stations under the Dallas company’s ownership.
In January 2020, Nexstar announced plans to turn the former home of “Bozo’s Circus” into a prime-time cable news network.
NewsNation has about 150 anchors, producers, editors and researchers working at its state-of-the-art cable newsroom inside the 60-year-old WGN-TV studios on West Bradley Place in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood. The network also leverages the resources of Nexstar’s 110 TV newsrooms and 5,500 journalists to provide coverage.