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"GMA" Having a Baby!
The Nielsen-challenged morning talk show, hosted by Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, hopes to pull off a (ratings-grabbing) landmark network television event next Tuesday, when it attempts to telecast a live childbirth between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.
The birth is billed as a first for morning television. (A childbirth was previously broadcast live during a prime-time ABC special 20 years ago, and taped births are regularly shown on such cable shows as TLC's A Baby Story.) The telecast is part of Good Morning America's special on maternity trends in the 21st century.
More importantly, it's also part of February sweeps, when networks try to draw as many viewers as possible to boost the prices they charge advertisers. GMA's adventures in motherhood (and reality programming) isn't a surprise. The morning gabfest has fallen behind NBC's Today show in the Nielsens.
Of course, no one is quite sure how the program will turn out, given the general unpredictability of labor.
"It will definitely be exciting since it has all the human drama of the everyday miracle," says executive producer Shelley Ross.
"We selected Tuesday because that's the day of the week that most births happen. We have three hospitals, and we picked one that has the most births a year--16,000 at Parkland Memorial in Dallas, Texas--that gives us a little bit of an advantage," she adds.
While producers finish compiling their list of volunteer moms and getting permission to film, they're also working on profiling obstetricians and their patients at Parkland, as well as Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Houston's Methodist Hospital.
GMA medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman will be standing by live from Beth Israel Hospital, while medical editor Dr. Timothy Johnson will be on hand from GMA's Times Square studio.
To keep the hype going until Tuesday, GMA has begun airing a series of segments reporting on modern motherhood. The show will examine trends such as older American mothers who are having kids well into their thirties and forties and how doctors are more frequently allowing family members into the labor room.
Good Morning America was originally scheduled to roll the maternity segment in November but was forced to bump the piece due to the election coverage. Ironically, during the day producers were considering taping a live birth, seven mothers had kids during GMA's time slot. Producers hope to have that kind of luck again.
"It's random, but we're live TV, and we'll go where the news takes us," notes Ross. "It's our producer's waiting room."
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