George Stephanopoulos Officially the New Anchor on Good Morning America

The morning news club has a new member.

ABC officially announced Thursday that George Stephanopoulos, host of This Week, joins Good Morning America on Monday, where he'll anchor with Robin Roberts. He replaces Diane Sawyer, who moves to evenings as ABC World News anchor on December 21st.

"Millions of Americans tune in every morning to find out what happened and make sense of it," Stephanopoulos said in an interview. "To have the chance to be part of that is exciting."

Stephanopoulos, 48, who will continue on This Week until a replacement is named, will also be the network's chief political correspondent.

Getting to keep his hand in Washington matters will make giving up This Week a little easier, he says.

In other appointments, Juju Chang takes over as GMA's news anchor, replacing Chris Cuomo, who moves to 20/20 and becomes ABC News' chief law and justice correspondent.

GMA will make use of Stephanopoulos' "pretty remarkable" interviewing skills, and the show will probably lean a little more toward hard news, senior executive producer Jim Murphy says.

"We're not going to become The Washington Post. We're going to do a lot of the stuff The Washington Post does, but we're also going to read The New York Post," he says. "We're probably going to be doing less of what The New York Post does, but we're still going to use it."

While the show builds on the anchor's skills, Stephanopoulos will take part in — and can handle — the show's lighter segments and humorous moments, Murphy says. Even on the serious Sunday public-affairs program, "he does laugh. He does offer a good one-liner every once in a while. I think you'll see a few more of those."

Roberts says she sees more similarities than differences in Sawyer and Stephanopoulos, who was a Clinton administration adviser. "They're both so intelligent and curious. They make people around them better. But you've got to be on your game."

Hard-news journalists have made the morning show transition, says Chris Ariens, managing editor of TVNewser.com, a website that covers the broadcast and cable news business. "There's a new generation of anchors who can be everything."

Stephanopoulos says both he and the show, which is a perennial runner-up in the ratings to NBC's dominant Today, are likely to adjust to each other. "It's going to work both ways. I think there's a way to bring some of the sensibility of This Week to Good Morning America, and I also know it's going to be fun and different to explore the stories and parts of Good Morning America that I haven't spent as much time on."

Stephanopoulos will commute between Washington and New York at first with his family — wife Alexandra Wentworth and their two daughters — and they will move to New York after the school year. As for adjusting to a wee-hours wakeup call, he says that's not a big concern.

"I'm a very early-to-bed, early-to-rise guy as it is."

ABC has Offered Good Morning America Co-Host Position to George Stephanopoulos

ABC has offered George Stephanopoulos the coveted job of co-hosting "Good Morning America" and intensive negotiations are underway, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The network's chief Washington correspondent has not yet accepted the job, and the talks involve not just the level of multimillion-dollar compensation, but also the details of his duties if he replaces Diane Sawyer. Stephanopoulos was in New York this week, and Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, was there for an affiliates board meeting. Sweeney met with ABC News President David Westin, who made his final pitch for Stephanopoulos.

The network has already turned its attention to who will replace the other contender, Chris Cuomo, as the "GMA" news anchor if Stephanopoulos, as expected, accepts the offer. Executives have staged taped sessions with three female staffers -- Kate Snow, JuJu Chang and Bianna Golodryga -- who have substituted in that role to see how they interact with the co-hosts.

As the discussions have dragged on for weeks, Stephanopoulos has pushed for a role reshaped to spotlight his interest in politics and hard news rather than feature segments. The sources, who declined to be identified discussing internal personnel matters, cautioned that the negotiations are complicated and the two sides might fail to reach agreement.

"We've made our timetable clear from the start, that this would be a four-month process," ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said Thursday. "We're still in that process, and we'll make an announcement as soon as we can."

The onetime Clinton White House aide has also pressed to hang on to his current job as the host of Washington-based "This Week" for as long as possible, although ABC executives do not believe he can handle both programs over the long term. ABC has not yet turned to the question of who might succeed Stephanopoulos on the prestigious Sunday show.

The clock is ticking on the negotiations because Sawyer is slated to take over "World News" from Charlie Gibson, whose last day as anchor will be Dec. 18. Sawyer is expected to start the following Monday, December 21st, with little fanfare.

The reassignment of Stephanopoulos as Robin Roberts's partner on "GMA" would be a risk for both him and the network. In the 13 years since he left politics, Stephanopoulos has grown in stature as a Sunday host and ABC's go-to guy in Washington, and he recognized from the start that the lighter, fluffier part of morning-show life was not his strong suit. With Sawyer leaving a sizable void in the morning program, which perpetually trails NBC's "Today," bringing in a big-name star has obvious appeal to Westin.

But Stephanopoulos's likely promotion coincides with an effort by Westin's division to beef up the morning show's first hour with hard news, and to add more consumer information -- about health care and personal finance, for instance -- to the 8 a.m. hour, which often features cooking and fashion segments.

In a sign that ABC executives are looking toward a future with Stephanopoulos, they have been talking to Cuomo about new opportunities at the network. Cuomo, an alternative choice if the talks with Stephanopoulos break down, is being courted by other networks.

The job he is likely vacating can range from a straight headline reader to traveling field correspondent, as it was for Cuomo, who recently reported from Afghanistan. Some ABC insiders say the network will probably pick a woman who has children, given the sizable female audience. The choice could create a ripple effect, just as Stephanopoulos's move might eventually result in a vacancy at "This Week." Snow, for instance, now co-hosts the weekend edition of "GMA," while Golodryga is the weekday program's business correspondent.

Will Three Gays Head Up Good Morning America?

With Diane Sawyer making her decade-long exit from Good Morning America, all of New York media wants to know: Who will take her place? Depending on who ABC picks, the network's morning show could become the gayest place on television.

By comparison, NBC's Today and CBS's The Early Show are pretty straight chat fests. (Okay, we've heard the gay rumors about Early's weatherman Dave Price, too. He's single and lives in NYC with his dog. Uh huh.) But on GMA, you've already got Robin Roberts and Sam Champion, both of whom are out among colleagues, but not viewing audiences (at least, they don't make it anyone's business).

That leaves Diane Sawyer and Chris Cuomo as the resident heteros, making GMA a refreshing half-gay. But what if ABC filled Diane's spot with another family member?

Already, financial lez Suze Orman has raised her hand to ABC brass letting them know she wants the job. But "insiders" says ABC wants a dude to replace Diane (who's leaving to take Charlie Gibson's evening anchor chair) and sit next to Robin, "restoring" the male-female duo main hosting construct.

"A short list of candidates," says the Los Angeles Times' Matea Gold, "is widely believed to include This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos, World News Saturday anchor David Muir, GMA Weekend co-host Bill Weir and GMA news anchor Chris Cuomo."

Funny, then, that Weir already has the gays speculating And so does Muir.

Not that adding another 'mo would really change GMA's formula of news, entertainment, and crossing and uncrossing legs. But it'd be nice to wake up every morning and see Chris Cuomo quivering among the Gs.