As ABC News Now
After having attempted a 20-minute online news program three times a week hosted by Sam Donaldson in 1999, ABC News launched ABC News Now (ABCNN) [2] in March 2003. The service was fee based except for the customers of America Online, Comcast, and a few other Internet providers. Later, mobile phone users could access the programming through Sprint's MobiTV. [3] The ABCNN service launched on July 24, 2004, with extended coverage of the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention. It was offered via digital television, broadband and streaming video at ABCNews.com [4] and on mobile phones. It delivered breaking news, headline news each half hour, and a wide range of entertainment and lifestyle programming.
On January 31, 2005, ABC News removed ABCNN from owned and operated and affiliated TV stations' subchannel as the channel ended its experimental phase originally expected to end after election day but extended past inauguration. The channel would continue on the internet and wireless devices. 20/20 senior broadcast producer Mike Clemente was then hired as executive producer to head up the channel as a part of an increasing capacity being developed for the channel to returns a permanent channel in the Spring. [5] The channel was relaunched as a digital terrestrial television network, [6] cable channel, [6] and broadband service in early April 2005. [7]
On November 5, 2007, Disney-ABC International Television announced plans to launch the channel in international territories, including Germany, Spain and Belgium in 2008 on IPTV service Zattoo, with more territories, including the United Kingdom, planned for the next 6 months. [8] This marked the second international channel launched under ABC branding, the first being the United Kingdom general entertainment channel ABC1 which closed on September 26, 2007.
On October 28, 2013, ABC News launched a new cable news channel, Fusion, as a joint venture with Univision [9] and contributing its ABC News Now operations. In 2021, Fusion ceased operations.
As ABC News Live
With news channels getting high ratings from the 2016 election and ABC News having exited its joint venture news channel, [10] ABCNL launched exclusively on Roku in March 2018 [11] then added to Facebook Watch and ABC apps and websites. Also on October 26, 2018, the channel was added to Hulu with Live TV [12] followed by Hulu SVOD on March 20, 2020. [13] On September 4, 2024, ABC News Live launched on Disney+.
On April 21, 2020, ABCNL launched on YouTube TV and Amazon's news app on Fire TV. [14]
On January 23, 2020, ABC News announced an expansion of staffing for the streaming channel and changes in programming to add newscasts and long form reports and documentaries being roll out over a month's time. Justin Dial, formerly of Vice News Tonight , was hired as senior executive producer of ABCNL. Tom Llamas (now at NBC News) would anchor breaking news coverage at the time of the Iowa caucuses, while Linsey Davis would anchor two weekday one-hour evening newscasts. [15] ABC News planned as of March 2020 that ABCNL would air 18 hours of programming daily. [13]
