Good Morning America Plans Major Change

Good Morning America is making plans to depart Times Square.

ABC’s morning show will stop broadcasting from the network’s studio at the center of Manhattan in 2025, our sister site Variety reports.

The planned relocation will take place as Walt Disney Co. moves all of its New York properties to a building in Hudson Square in lower Manhattan. No word yet on whether GMA will shoot from a ground-level studio there like it did in Times Square, drawing tourists in the same way that NBC’s Today does in the nearby Rockefeller Center.

LIVE With Kelly and Mark, which currently shoots in the Lincoln Center area of Manhattan, also will move to Hudson Square.

“Good Morning America’ is defined by the strength of our team in front of and behind the camera, quality of our reporting, and the long, trusted relationship with our viewers,” ABC News said in a statement. “Moving all ABC News teams to our new state-of-the-art building was a strategic decision that will allow for more collaboration and innovation.”

In July, Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted that the linear TV business “may not be core” to the company’s future. Months later, Bloomberg reported that the company was having “exploratory talks” about selling ABC and its stations to Nexstar Media Group. In a statement at the time, a Disney spokesperson said of the ABC/Nexstar rumor, “While we are open to considering a variety of strategic options for our linear businesses, at this time The Walt Disney Company has made no decision with respect to the divestiture of ABC or any other property and any report to that effect is unfounded.”