Stephanie Ramos will help the Walt Disney Co. and ABC News deliver more than fireworks during a weekend that many TV companies are devoting to celebrating the Fourth of July.
During a special Saturday telecast of “Good Morning America” on ABC, Ramos, an ABC News national correspondent who has served for many years in the nation’s military reserves, will rappel down a wall live from Fort Campbell, a U.S. Army base close to Nashville. “She’s a badass,” says Simone Swink, the ABC News executive who oversees the Disney news outlet’s morning and overnight programming.
Ramos’ wall scramble makes Swink “a little bit nervous,” but it will be one of many different spectacles being shows across ABC, Disney+, ESPN, Hulu, National Geographic, Freeform, FX and ABC News Live starting Friday night and lasting throughout Saturday. Viewers may think they are simply witnessing hours of in-the-moment programming spurred in large part by ABC News staffers fanning out around the country. What they may not know is that the programming has been part of a year-long project that in many ways will burnish the company’s expertise in offering live programming at a moment when Disney is relying more heavily on such stuff to fuel its economics.
