Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and Good Morning America’s greatest guys, Chris Cuomo and Sam Champion, are set to traverse the globe exploring the world’s largest everything beginning March 9.
Good Morning America anchors Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts, Chris Cuomo and Sam Champion will travel around the world to bring viewers the biggest and coolest things on the planet when the morning program launches its BIG series. Each morning, one of the GMA anchors will report from a surprise location, bringing must-see reports to viewers from around the planet.
GMA previewed BIG earlier this morning when they hosted the biggest band on Earth, U2!
Chris Cuomo and Sam Champion finished taping Good Morning America and gave SheKnows a call.
GMA goes big
SheKnows: First off, are all of you at Good Morning America ready to travel?
Chris Cuomo: I do most of the traveling on the show as it is, so for us, it’s nothing new to be out. What is nice though on a trip like this is that we’re not going to a place because it’s fundamentally in a state of disaster. That’s nice. Everywhere we’re going, those places face certain challenges and we’ll tell you about them. But, it’s nice to be able to go to a place for good reasons for change.”
SheKnows: Are you able at all to inject any of your own personal hopes and dreams for these areas as you are combing the globe?
Hints as to where GMA’s going?
Sam Champion: No, the funny thing is…are you trying to get us to tell you where we’re going? That sounds like a question that is leading to a reveal (laughs).
SheKnows: No, of course not. That would be leading…
We all share a hearty laugh.
Sam Champion: Most of these places are, well first of all, the whole idea is big. When we sat around to talk about it together it was really a group consensus on things that are the biggest. Everybody had a little thing that they could bring into it from their perspective and personal knowledge about things that are big and would wow you and things that would amaze you. They are man-made, they are in nature. For you to get a moment in your day to just inspire you and go ‘wow, I didn’t know that. I learned that.’ Or, ‘I’ve never seen that.’ In that way, maybe, but it’s really more about ‘I really can’t wait to show you this.’
SheKnows: Well, also, I can’t think of a better way to kick it off than with U2. The band performed with the Good Morning America crew on March 6 in anticipation of your March 9 BIG launch. Talk about BIG and things that will make you think, that is U2 right there. How excited are you all at GMA to get them to start this off?
Chris Cuomo: I think it’s great. I think it’s one of those things that is a source of pride more than anything else that they chose us and that this is where they want to be for an opportunity like this. And to have the access we’re able to get at Good Morning America, makes the job, even cooler than you might imagine at home. Where else are you getting to meet the caliber of musician? This is a band people will know for generations. It’s really exciting. It’s a good day to be on Good Morning America.
Big beginnings
SheKnows: For both of you and Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and the entire Good Morning America team, where did this idea come from? Honestly, because the idea is so big and so original.
Sam Champion: It’s funny, I don’t’ know how anyone else does it, but we truly do sit down and get together and throw out ideas and bounce them off of each other. Look, we know, it’s our responsibility to cover the news of the day, the breaking news, the breaking weather – all of the topical elements of the day – we know that. In that two-hour broadcast there has to be some element of interest and some element that’s uplifting, some element that’s fun, and we all really do sit around and bounce these ideas. It’s not something an odd group out of the middle of no where comes up with these ideas.
SheKnows: The GMA set sounds very organic. Also, in these times, you mentioned the words inspiration in the places you visit that are big and even having U2 today on GMA is inspirational, why do you think that now more than ever we need the inspiration to think big?
Chris Cuomo: Look around, there’s no subtlety to the rationale here. Times are tough, historically so — uniquely so. You can do the job different ways. We report the news that’s going on as well as anybody, day-in, day-out. We’ll give you interviews. We’ll do investigated work on it. We are at the scene that is relevant for you and we do that with a very singular gusto. But, at a certain point, you want to give the audience something more to fulfill them than just the obvious of what they’re confronting day-in and day-out. You can do it a couple of different ways and you can do both with the BIG series. One, you can show they’re not alone. You go around the world and give them a sensitivity to what other people are dealing with and how it’s similar to them, and then you can do something else that is not a bad thing. That is, give them a distraction. Let them wonder again. Let them have feelings that make them hopeful. Make them happy. Give them a sense of leaving the morning with something else on their mind other than the next bad forecast.
Sam Champion: We’re all in this together. It’s not a launch for a Disney song. It’s true. We sit there with our friends and families. We know what the news is, we see it. You understand what it feels like to have not such great news delivered everyday. There is a moment in everyone’s day when you need to have a good feeling. When you need to have hope and say ‘OK that was nice. That was a good story that made me feel better.’ This will do that. It’s our privilege to be able to do it.
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