ABC News Live Taps BuzzFeed’s David Hatcher to Oversee Morning News Programming
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ABC News has recruited veteran TV producer David Hatcher as executive producer to oversee the morning news programming block for the ABC News Live streaming network.
Hatcher most recently spent a year at BuzzFeed, where he was executive producer of morning news show “AM2DM” on Twitter. For ABC News Live, Hatcher will be responsible for building out programming weekdays from 6 a.m.-12 p.m. ET.
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“David has an unequivocal passion for storytelling and a distinct eye for streaming news programming, which will be a huge advantage as we grow,” Justin Dial, senior executive producer for ABC News Live, wrote in a memo to staff Monday. “I’m excited to see what he and the team he builds will create in the coming months.”
ABC News Live is available at ABCNews.com, Roku, Hulu, Sling TV, Xumo and ABC News apps. Last month, ABC said that by the end of 2020, ABC News Live will air 18 hours of live and original content daily across all dayparts, including a mix of live, anchored news programs in primetime, morning and daytime, breaking news coverage and original documentaries.
With Hatcher’s exit from BuzzFeed, Emily Rothschild, previously supervising producer who helped launch ”AM2DM” in 2017, is taking over as executive producer of the show.
Prior to BuzzFeed, Hatcher was at NBC’s New York local station WNBC, where he had been an executive producer for news since 2012. He worked at Fox’s WNYW (from 2002-06 and then from 2008-12), with a stint in between as assistant news director at CBS’s WBZ TV in Boston for the 11 p.m. newscast. He previously served as executive producer at WCBS, where he coordinated coverage of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. He started his journalism career at WABC, where he produced “Eyewitness News This Morning” from 5:30-7 a.m. weekdays in the mid-’90s.
ABC News announced two other appointments Monday:
Eric Johnson will join ABC Audio as the new director and executive producer of podcast programming beginning mid-March. Most recently he was senior broadcast producer at “Good Morning America.”
Mike Kelley is joining the ABC News Long Form unit as VP of platforms, responsible for the business strategy of documentaries and docu-series distributed to partners in the Disney TV and streaming ecosystem. Kelley previously was at ITV Studios Global Distribution, where he was senior VP of sales, Americas.
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