Currently under fire following a stunning defamation settlement with President-elect Donald Trump, ABC News star George Stephanopoulos has reached a new multi-year deal with the network, ending speculation that the Good Morning America host could be on his way out.
The Los Angeles Times was the first to report on the Disney-owned network’s deal to retain Stephanopoulos.
While the timing of the agreement comes as ABC News faces intense blowback for settling Trump’s lawsuit, Stephanopoulos has been in negotiations with the network for at least last month over a renewal that would keep him around for a few more years.
In his Status newsletter last month, Oliver Darcy reported that Stephanopoulos, who was making over $20 million a year, had “been offered a deal that will see his salary, like everyone else in the declining television news industry, get a significant haircut.” With the possibility of a lower salary on the table, Darcy also reported that Stephanopoulos was potentially looking at a reduced workload at the network. For some time now, the 63-year-old anchor has only hosted the Sunday public affairs show This Week once a month, despite the show bearing his name as lead anchor.
An ABC News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
While the terms of the deal have not been released, a source told Variety that the “length of the extension was shorter than a typical on-air talent pact — which is another sign of the times for the TV news business.” Other high-priced talent across the cable and broadcast news landscape have also seen their salaries slashed.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, for instance, agreed last month to a new contract extension that pays her $5 million less a year.
Although the contract extension may have been in the works for some time, it was finalized after ABC News drew significant backlash for agreeing to pay the president-elect $15 million to settle his defamation lawsuit over Stephanopoulos’s comments last March. Journalists have blasted the network’s “capitulation” to Trump as “bending the knee,” while legal experts have warned it could have a “chilling effect” on the media and press freedoms.
Making matters worse for Stephanopoulos, who had vowed after Trump filed his libel claim that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job,” was the network agreeing to issue a statement of “regret” over the anchor claiming Trump was found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case. (A jury found that the incoming president was liable for sexual abuse of the writer, but his actions didn’t meet New York’s stringent legal definition of rape.) ABC also agreed to pay Trump’s legal team $1 million.
Florida federal Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga denied the company’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying “a reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos’s statements as defamatory.” She followed that up last week by rejecting Disney’s request to delay the case, ordering the immediate depositions of Trump and Stephanopoulos and demanding the company turn over “all remaining documents” related to the case.
Disney reacted to the most recent setback by entering into settlement talks with Trump, reaching a deal within a day. According to The New York Times, Disney executives’ concerns “involved multiple considerations,” and the settlement was approved by Disney CEO Bob Iger and general counsel Horacio Gutierrez.
“The company was concerned that a jury in Florida — a deep-red state that Mr. Trump carried by 13 points in the election last month — would side with the president-elect and potentially award him a sizable sum exceeding what it would cost to settle,” the Times reported. “Disney could have appealed, of course, and executives felt the law was on their side. But the appeals process also carried substantial risk, Disney lawyers concluded.”
The New York Post later reported that Stephanopoulos had been repeatedly told by an executive producer not to use the word rape during the March interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a revelation that would have come out in discovery and possibly explains why Iger decided to settle.
Stephanopoulos, meanwhile, felt blindsided and “apoplectic” over his network capitulating to Trump and issuing a quasi-apology, ABC News insiders and staffers said. After the settlement was announced on Saturday, the anchor deleted his account on X, which boasted 2.3 million followers.
Regardless of the reasons why Disney felt the need to settle with Trump, First Amendment experts are sounding the alarm over the precedent this could set. Especially since the incoming president ramps up his legal threats against news outlets he feels have given him unfair coverage, all while billionaire media moguls have signaled that they are willing to play nice with him.
“Many in free press circles are holding their breath,” Roy Gutterman, director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech, told The Independent. “There is concern that we are embarking on some scary times.”
