Sheraton Kalouria, President and Chief Marketing Officer at Sony Pictures Television, Actress Piper Perabo, Executive Producer/Showrunner Josh Berman, Actress Sepideh Moafi and Channing Dungey, President of ABC Entertainment Group attend the Premiere Of A (Photo : Getty Images/ Greg Doherty)
ABC had to move the new episodes of "Scandal," "How to Get Away with Murder" and "Grey's Anatomy" to give way to the "20/20" Donald Trump pre-inauguration special, titled "America's New First Family: The Trumps Go to Washington." According to ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey, pushing back the air dates of the said series was a hard call.
After all the many ads promoting Jan. 19 as the big return date of the network's popular #TGIT lineup, ABC had to postpone the widely touted premiere of the three series in favor of the pre-inauguration special, Yahoo News reported. Instead of Jan. 19, the premiere of "Scandal" Season 6 and the midseason returns of "How to Get Away with Murder" and "Grey's Anatomy," have been moved to Jan. 26.
Dungey admitted that while fans were not happy about the postponement, she was not happy about it either. At the Television Critics' Association (TCA) press tour, the TV executive explained to TV Line their decision to give way.
"It was a very hard call, believe me. Nobody else has been waiting for it bigger than me," she told the publication. According to her, there had been ongoing talks with the ABC News leading into the inauguration day, including the discussion of the pre-inauguration special. That was despite the network not airing any special of the same nature eight years ago, when Barack Obama was about to assume the U.S. presidency.
Dungey went on to explain that initially, ABC News pitched just a two-hour profile of the Trump First Family. However, it was cut in half since ABC wanted to keep at least some of the #TGIT lineup return intact. Ultimately, Dungey said they decided it would be better to just reschedule all of the series included in the lineup so fans could watch all the new episodes back at once.
Dungey also said airing a special this time for the Trump Family would be very essential, since the U.S.A. is currently facing a more complicated and difficult transition process compared with when Obama took office eight years ago.
Watch Donald Trump's inauguration countdown here:
