When Disney+ launched in 2019, the streaming service featured segments from existing ABC News programming like “Good Morning America” and “Nightline.”
As consumers increasingly cut the cord from linear TV, the 24/7 streaming channel ABC News Live was integrated into Disney+ in September as part of its “Streams” offering. Now, Disney+ is doubling down on its ABC News streaming bet with “What You Need to Know,” a short-form, daily news show exclusively made for the service.
Hosted by Rachel Scott and James Longman from New York, London, Washington D.C. and beyond, the program will cover everything from breaking news to entertainment buzz and viral videos. Episodes will range from six to 10 minutes long and will be available on-demand for 24 hours before refreshing with the next day’s news and headlines, with plans to reduce the time between refreshes over time.
“Our mission is to deliver something that is fast, fluid and fearless,” ABC News president Almin Karamehmedovic told TheWrap. “We want to reach audiences wherever they are and ‘What You Need to Know’ is just another way of bringing some innovative spirit to streaming.”
The launch of “What You Need to Know” on Disney+ comes as TV news is fighting for relevance while older, traditional linear audiences are cutting the cord and switching to streaming and younger audiences are turning to TikTok, YouTube and podcasts for information. And though film and even live sports have migrated to streaming, news has been slower to follow.
It also comes amid Trump administration attacks on media, ranging from suing ABC, CBS and The Wall Street Journal to pushing Congress for funding cuts to NPR and PBS. When asked about Trump’s impact, Karamehmedovic said ABC News is focused on its stories and audience and “committed to providing straightforward journalism in the most meaningful and relatable way.”
“Our mission is to keep the course and stay true to our mission every single day, every single broadcast, every single show on linear and streaming,” he said.
Tapping the Disney+ audience
Disney+ President Alisa Bowen told TheWrap the service’s “news proposition” kicked off with the 2024 election and has been growing steadily since with ABC News’ coverage of global events.
“We found during those moments that we really built a meaningful audience and provided incremental reach to what was being delivered through the linear channels,” she said. “So it demonstrated to us that there was hunger for reliable, credible, quality news service in those moments that matter.”
At the same time, Bowen has looked to increase the quantity, quality and variety of content available on Disney+ to drive engagement and increase its profitability.
“Following the launch of our daily sports live shows, it made sense for us to add ‘What You Need to Know’ to round out that offering,” she said.
A fight for relevance
In May, streaming surpassed broadcast and cable’s combined share of TV viewership, according to Nielsen. Last month, broadcast’s share of viewership fell below 20% for the first time as streaming extended those gains, though it was bolstered by the NBA Finals and “World News Tonight with David Muir” on ABC.
The latter, which averages 7.7 million viewers a day, has reached 747,000 viewers in the 18 to 49 year demo season to date, per Nielsen data shared by ABC.
Year to date, ABC News Live has grown 35% year over year with 353 million hours streamed across Disney+, Hulu and other digital platforms. It is also one of the top-performing Disney+ Streams offerings, with the channel and Disney+ Playtime driving over 10 million hours streamed combined in the U.S. as of September 2024.
Despite industry-wide efforts to bring news to streaming, a recent Reuters/University of Oxford poll found that social media had overtaken TV and websites/apps as a primary news source for the first time, a shift driven primarily by those aged 18 to 34.
Most notably, CNN tried to pivot to streaming with the launch of the standalone streaming news service CNN+ in 2022, which was shuttered after just one month in the wake of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. CNN has since launched a live feed of programming on Max and is slated to launch a new standalone streaming service this fall.
Fox also offers live news content through Fox Nation, which reported between 2 million and 2.5 million subscribers as of March, and will package its sports and news content in streaming service Fox One, which is set to launch this fall.
“We’ve seen over the last decade a lot of places testing out streaming and it not necessarily catching on,”Anthony Adornato, chair of Syracuse University’s broadcast and digital journalism department, told TheWrap. “I don’t think packaging things the same way you’re doing traditional TV news on broadcast is the best approach, because honestly, people are not resonating with the idea of traditional TV news.”
Though traditional news has an edge in “trust and knowledgeability,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jon Giegengack told TheWrap that consumers see non-traditional online sources as faster (40%) and more likely to offer a wider range of perspectives (36%), citing the firm’s Video Redefined survey of nearly 2,000 users.
Giegengack said it remains to be seen how audiences will react to “What You Need to Know,” but acknowledged it’s an evolution of “old school” news and “more aligned with how people consume this content today.”
While also acknowledging it’s a step in the right direction, Adornato says news outlets need to focus on adopting a digital-first approach beyond just streaming.
“I do think the idea of giving folks the quick, up to date stuff is a decent approach, given that people are more distracted now than ever and they don’t want to wait for the lead to whatever the story is,” he said. “But I’m not convinced that approach alone is going to gain enough traction to move the needle. It’s one part of a bigger strategy to build a value proposition.”
Former television executive Evan Shapiro pointed to the digital transformation of the New York Times as “the case study everyone in media should study. “
“Until news organizations realize that digital is now the global hearth, and program their news for digital users first, their irrelevance will grow, and global trust in media will fade,” Shapiro warned.
A multi-platform approach
While “What You Need to Know” is designed to be an “in the moment” experience for Disney+ subscribers, Bowen said the show would leverage Longman and Scott’s recognition among younger viewers and use a “multi-platform” distribution approach to drive awareness, with plans for clips to be shared via social media.
In addition to Disney+, ABC News Live programming is available through Hulu, online at ABC News’ website and through pay TV providers like YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream.
Looking ahead, Karamehmedovic said ABC News’ future on Disney+ remains “big and bright,” with plans to expand the network’s lineup of content made exclusively for the streamer. Bowen added that Disney’s content portfolio is being managed in “totality” and that distribution decisions for all programming would continue to be made on a “case by case basis.”
“Linear audiences are still large, very meaningful and very profitable and we’re also having great success with driving the profitability of our streaming businesses,” she said. “So we’re proving that we can do both and that’s how we intend to continue running the businesses.”
