In 2020, ABC News decided to bring its news programming into the streaming age with the launch of the 24/7 channel ABC News Live. One of the key programs during its launch was “ABC News Live Prime” hosted by Linsey Davis.
“We started in February, which was right on the cusp of COVID. I think that put us at a disadvantage at the time, because we had a new team that’s just coming together and we’re thinking, ‘Oh, we’re going to be able to be so collaborative.’ All of a sudden everybody was in their studio apartment, separate, in different boroughs, trying to put this show together,” Davis recalled in an exclusive interview with TheWrap. “It was a baptism by fire.”
Five years later, ABC News Live has grown roughly 50% year-over-year and nearly doubled since 2020, with over 600 million hours streamed in 2024, up from 340 million five years ago. “Prime” has also seen its total hours streamed more than triple since 2020, though ABC News did not disclose specific numbers.
January was the second most-watched month in the history of the channel, as viewers tuned into its extended coverage on events like the New Years attacks in New Orleans, Los Angeles wildfires, the second inauguration of Donald Trump, a plane collision over the Potomac River and a plane crash in Philadelphia.
Davis, who also currently hosts ABC News’ “World News Tonight” on weekends for the linear channel and broadcasts daily across ABC News Radio, told TheWrap that leading an hour-long news program on streaming has allowed her to not only sharpen her skills covering politics, but to go more in depth on a wide variety of stories, whether it’s keeping up with the Trump administration’s latest policy or the ongoing recovery from the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.
“When you just have that 22-minute slot of the typical linear show, you’re able to just give limited information. We’re able to really give a lot more context and put things in perspective. We’re able to actually flesh it out and have conversations with the newsmakers of the day,” she told TheWrap. “It’s bearing out in just the first few weeks of this administration, where things are happening in a very fast and furious way and viewers have a lot of questions and are really concerned about what this means. We have the time [to answer those questions] because the landscape isn’t so limited.”
Other highlights for Davis over the past five years include the series “Running Mates,” in which she interviewed the spouses of political candidates, as well as “Race to November,” where ABC would get more personal with politicians by interviewing them while doing an activity based on their hobbies and asking questions outside of policy.
ABC News Live was nominated for a total of eight awards at the 2024 News & Documentary Emmys, including Davis’ show getting a nod for “Outstanding Live News Program.” The channel also had its first-ever Emmy Award win for “Israeli Leader Speaks Out” in the Outstanding Live Interview: Short Form category.
Coinciding with ABC News Live Prime’s 5-year anniversary is the move of Davis’ show from ABC headquarters on the Upper West Side in Manhattan to a new studio downtown at Disney’s new building in Hudson Square.
“It’s super impressive, as far as all the touch screens and digital access that we have. We’re excited about the new opportunities that the studio will lend itself to,” she said.
In addition to allowing Davis’ show to take advantage of new technical capabilities, the move brings ABC News on-air talent under the same roof as local news talent from WABC.
“The benefit to us all being together is this cohesion. We’re able to bring these resources together. Before it was rather siloed, now everybody is in the building together,” she added. “I just went out to lunch with one of my colleagues from WABC last week and she was saying, ‘If you guys need me to do some stuff on ‘Prime,’ I’m going to be there with you now,’ and she wanted to start having those conversations right away. So it’s just a benefit to be able to have everybody under one roof.”
As Davis looks ahead at the future of “ABC News Live Prime” and the shifting media landscape, she believes that news on streaming will only become more popular and competitive going forward.
“Our executive producer Seni Tienabeso says, “Streaming is now. It’s the present.” Some people think it’s down the road, still up ahead, but it’s now,” she said. “I always liken it to Edward R. Murrow, a strictly radio guy who was really against making a transition into television. His thinking was radio is still the mainstay for the way people are going to consume their news, but he saw the advantage in doing both for a while and then TV actually took off. What I think is interesting about that analogy is radio still exists, there’s still a lot of people who get their news and consume it that way on their morning commute into work or home. And I imagine it’s going to be a similar transition in that there’s still going to be a place for linear, but I look at it in the same vein. Streaming is the new TV of it all.”
While acknowledging that younger generations no longer view TV news as appointment viewing — and are getting the majority of their updates through social media — Davis hopes that ABC News Live will continue to build and gain trust with audiences, whether its cord cutters making the shift from linear or cord nevers discovering them for the first time.
“The more we’re building out, the more people see this isn’t just canned. What we are hoping to do is just be a go-to space for young people,” she added. “I feel that I’m in the ready position, that I’m able to pivot from linear to radio to streaming and keep all those balls in the air. I feel like it’s a benefit to be able to bring our audience into all of those different formats, but I think that streaming, which is where I spend the majority of my time, has the legs for the future and now.”
ABC News Live programming is available on Hulu and Disney+.
