The new year is bringing chills to ABC's "This Week," where anchor Christiane Amanpour's Washington staff worries that the show will be moved to New York.
An insider says a top priority for new ABC president Ben Sherwood is to decide whether Amanpour's Sunday morning public-affairs show -- historically based in the nation's capital, where the top political journalists, pundits and lawmakers reside -- will relocate to the Big Apple, the media capital.
"When Ben visited the DC bureau, every other person asked him if the show was moving," an ABC source told us.
Amanpour, the ex-CNN war correspondent who took over for "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos in August after a lengthy summer vacation in the South of France, refuses to move to Washington from her Manhattan pad.
Telling friends that she doesn't want to pull her young son out of school here, she flies to Washington each Friday to host the show on Sunday,
An insider said ABC staffers were furious that Amanpour hired one of her former CNN producers two months ago to be her anchor producer from New York. Many now worry that she'll replace the DC team with her former foreign-affairs CNN co-workers and producers in New York.
"Everyone is panicking that their jobs will be toast after the New Year," another source said. "She's slowly moving the operation to New York."
"This Week" executive producer James Goldston and publicist Natalia Labenskyj are based in New York. Amanpour placed third in overall viewership and in the 25-to-54 demo, behind NBC and CBS, in the time slot on Sunday, Dec. 19.
"Everything is status quo with 'This Week,' " an ABC rep told Page Six. "Nothing is imminent."
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