''This Week'', originally titled as ''This Week with David Brinkley'' and currently billed as ''This Week with George Stephanopoulos'', is an American Sunday morning political affairs program airing on the ABC television network. It premiered on November 15, 1981, with David Brinkley as its original anchor until his retirement in 1996. The program has been anchored by

George Stephanopoulos George Robert Stephanopoulos ( el, Γεώργιος Στεφανόπουλος ; born February 10, 1961) is an American television host, political commentator, and former Democratic advisor. Stephanopoulos currently is a coanchor with Robin Robe ...

since 2012, after first hosting it from 2002 to 2010. Martha Raddatz and Jonathan Karl have been co-hosts since 2016 and 2021, respectively. The program airs live at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time although many stations air the program at a later slot to air local newscasts, especially those in other time zones. During the David Brinkley era, the program drew consistent #1 ratings and in Stephanopolous era generally runs in third place among the Sunday morning talk shows, behind '' Meet the Press'' and '' Face the Nation''.

History

In 1960, ABC launched its first Sunday talk show '' Issues and Answers'', which featured policy discussions, prior to the age of political pundits dominating the talk shows. One of its early hosts was

Howard K. Smith Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as th ...

, who also had his own prime-time public affairs program '' Howard K. Smith: News and Comment'' air on the network during the 1962–1963 season. Among the program's later hosts was

Bob Clark Benjamin Robert Clark (August 5, 1939 – April 4, 2007) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He is best known for his work in the Canadian film industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where he was responsible ...

. On November 15, 1981, David Brinkley came to the network from NBC News and was given full responsibility for the show, which was relaunched as ''This Week'' with a network time slot at 10:30 AM Eastern Time. During Brinkley's run, three major sponsors were part of the show: General Electric (which departed after taking control on NBC in 1987),

Archer Daniels Midland The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company operates more than 270 plants and 42 ...

and

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

. On November 10, 1996, David Brinkley retired as host of ''This Week'' but continued to appear on the program providing commentary segments until September 28, 1997. Following Brinkley's retirement, ABC News journalists Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts subsequently became co-hosts of ''This Week''. Since 1981, the names of the primary anchors have been included with the show's title, such as ''This Week with David Brinkley'' and during this era, the program was billed as ''This Week with Sam & Cokie''. Longtime panelist

became the new host of ''This Week'' on September 15, 2002; he ended his first tenure with the program on January 10, 2010, shortly after being named the co-host of ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...

''. ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper served as the interim anchor from March to July 2010. On April 20, 2008, production of ''This Week'' relocated to the Newseum in Washington, D.C., in a studio that overlooks the U.S. Capitol. In addition, the program began broadcasting in

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape * HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...

, becoming the first Sunday morning talk show to broadcast in HD. Following the transition, the program discontinued the segments ''Images'' and ''Voices''. ABC and ''This Week'' moved out of the Newseum in 2013 due to infrequent use of the studio and other facilities, with the former studio later being used for the Washington bureau of cable news channel Al Jazeera America. Christiane Amanpour, a longtime world affairs correspondent at CNN, began as the program's host on August 1, 2010. During her first two months as host, the ratings for ''This Week'' reached their lowest point since 2003. In December 2011, it was announced that Amanpour would step down as anchor of the program, while returning to CNN in turn. On January 5, 2012, ABC News announced that Stephanopoulos would return as the host of ''This Week''. With the return of Stephanopolous as moderator, the program began using former ''Good Morning America'' and '' World News Tonight'' anchor Charles Gibson to perform the voice-over heard during the opening of each broadcast; this lasted until 2014. In 2016, Martha Raddatz was named co-anchor of ''This Week'', alternating each weekend with Stephanopoulos.

Ratings

In February 2009, the ratings gap between ''Meet the Press'' and its competitors – ''This Week'' and CBS' ''Face the Nation'' – began closing. ''Meet the Press'' posted its lowest ratings since NBC News correspondent David Gregory became moderator in early February of that year, with the February 1 telecast averaging just 3.9 million viewers. ''Face the Nation'' averaged 3.33 million total viewers, while ''This Week'' came in just behind with 3.32 million. ''This Week'' beat ''Meet the Press'' on January 11, when George Stephanopoulos interviewed President-Elect Barack Obama.

Key features

One of the key features of ''This Week'' is the roundtable, which included pundits such as George Will and ABC News correspondents such as Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts, and other guests discussing the major issues of the week. Will, a regular panelist who was with the program from its launch with David Brinkley until he left ABC to join Fox News as a contributor in 2013, sometimes contributed short reports to the broadcast. After George Stephanopolous became host in 2002, new segments were added to the program including: * ''Images'', a selection of photographs illustrating various news stories from the past week. * ''In Memoriam'', a listing of prominent deaths, including all reported military deaths, that occurred during the week. * ''Sunday Funnies'', excerpts from various late night talk and

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...

programs that aired during the week. * ''Voices'', excerpts from various interviews conducted during the week. In 2010, Jake Tapper arranged with Bill Adair to get PolitiFact.com to

fact check Fact-checking is the process of verifying factual information, in order to promote the veracity and correctness of reporting. Fact-checking can be conducted before (''ante hoc'') or after (''post hoc'') the text is published or otherwise dissem ...

the statements made by panelists and guests featured on ''This Week''.

On-air staff

Hosts

* David Brinkley (November 15, 1981 – November 10, 1996) * Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts (November 17, 1996 – September 8, 2002) *

(September 15, 2002 – January 10, 2010 and January 8, 2012 – present) * Jake Tapper (March–July 2010) * Christiane Amanpour (August 1, 2010 – December 25, 2011) * Martha Raddatz, co-host (January 24, 2016 – present) * Jonathan Karl, co-host (February 21, 2021 – present)

Regular panelists

The Roundtable typically includes three or four panelists along with the moderator. Recurring panelists have included George Will, Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldson,

Bill Kristol William Kristol (; born December 23, 1952) is an American neoconservative writer. A frequent commentator on several networks including CNN, he was the founder and editor-at-large of the political magazine ''The Weekly Standard''. Kristol is now ...

, Fareed Zakaria, Martha Raddatz, Peggy Noonan, Victoria Clarke, Donna Brazile, Ann Coulter, Paul Krugman,

Jay Carney James Ferguson 'Jay' Carney (born May 22, 1965) is an American public relations officer, political advisor and journalist who has served as Amazon's Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs from 2015 to 2022, and the United States Whit ...

, Claire Shipman,

E.J. Dionne, Jr. Eugene Joseph Dionne Jr. (; born April 23, 1952) is an American journalist, political commentator, and long-time op-ed columnist for ''The Washington Post''. He is also a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a profes ...

, Robert Reich, David Corn, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Mark Halperin, Joe Klein, Van Jones, David Brooks, Matthew Dowd, Mary Matalin and Ed Gillespie.

International broadcasts

ABC News programming, including ''This Week'', is shown weekly on the 24-hour news network OSN News in the Middle Eastern/North Africa region. It also airs in Australia on SBS, in Japan on NHK BS 1.

References

External links

*
George's Bottom Line
at ABC News
This Week
at ABC Medianet * and {{DEFAULTSORT:This Week (American TV program) 1981 American television series debuts 1980s American television talk shows 1990s American television talk shows 2000s American television talk shows 2010s American television talk shows 2020s American television talk shows 1980s American television news shows 1990s American television news shows 2000s American television news shows 2010s American television news shows 2020s American television news shows ABC News American Broadcasting Company original programming Fusion TV original programming English-language television shows American Sunday morning talk shows