'Good Morning America' celebrates its 50th anniversary
On Nov. 3, 1975, a new era of morning television began when co-anchors David Hartman and Nancy Dussault welcomed viewers to ABC's new show, "Good Morning America."
Fifty years later, on Nov. 3, 2025, the show's current co-anchors, Robin Roberts, Michael Strahan and George Stephanopoulos, kicked off a celebration of the show's milestone anniversary with the same three words to viewers, "Good morning, America."
Roberts, Strahan, and Stephanopoulos were joined later on the show by "GMA" co-anchors of the past 50 years, including Diane Sawyer, Joan Lunden, Charlie Gibson, Kevin Newman, Lisa McRee, Hartman and Dussault, who was a Tony-nominated actress before joining the broadcast.
"I'm used to staying up very late from the theater, so it was quite a jolt," Dussault said Monday on "GMA" about her transition from Broadway to morning television. "We went on the air about 10 days after I was hired. David had already been hired."
Hartman, who was also an actor before hosting "GMA" from 1975 to 1986, said it was a "privilege" to deliver the news to Americans every morning.
"In terms of what we tried to do, and we looked forward to doing, [it] was just a flat-out privilege," Hartman told ABC News' Will Reeve Monday in an interview at his home in North Carolina. "To have the opportunity to try to bring information to people in the audience, our viewers, who could take some information away from our program, and put it to work in some kind of useful, productive way in their own personal lives, that was our goal."
He continued, "And that was our responsibility, to get information to our viewers that they could use in a useful way in their personal lives."
In the five decades since the show's first broadcast, "GMA" has brought viewers everywhere from cities and towns across the United States to countries around the world, on adrenaline-inducing adventures and in conversation with celebrities, world leaders and everyday people alike.
Sawyer said she was told she traveled the equivalent of 14 times around the globe during her nearly 11 years on "GMA."
She added that when she thinks of "GMA," she thinks of the proverb, "A true friend divides your sorrows and multiplies your joys."
"That's it. That's what we would do for each other when we came home and came in every morning, and I hope that's what we did for all of you, [the viewers]," Sawyer said. "That's what we wanted to do."
Lunden, who co-anchored "GMA" for nearly 20 years, said being on the show was like being part of a family.
"It's a privilege. There's very few people that get that privilege of going into millions of people's homes every morning," she said. "And it was a lot of fun. I mean, we traveled the world together, and it was almost like more than a camaraderie ... it was almost like a family."
Gibson said the "GMA" family includes not only the on-air team that viewers see, but also the dozens and dozens of "GMA" staff who work around-the-clock behind the scenes to deliver a show each morning.
"There is an entire staff of a lot of people who work 22 hours a day and then at 7 o'clock, they say, 'Here's our work product. Make us proud,'" Gibson said. "So it's not just the people who are here, it's the people, so many people, who are off-camera."
