Chris Cuomo joining ABC’s morning team

ABC officials tapped senior legal correspondent Chris Cuomo on Monday to be the next news anchor of “Good Morning America,” which has been short an anchor since Charles Gibson moved to “World News” in May.

“He brings a lot of qualities to the team,” senior executive producer Jim Murphy said of Cuomo, who will start Sept. 5. “He’s a really aggressive newsman.”

Cuomo is not directly replacing Gibson, who was co-anchor of the program, along with Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts. Instead, the 36-year-old will anchor the news blocks that air throughout the morning, as well as cover breaking news and enterprise stories and serve as the principal substitute anchor for Sawyer and Roberts.

“We are not starting a new anchor configuration or a three-legged team,” Murphy said.

For his part, Cuomo -- the son of former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo -- said he would “do whatever they ask me to do,” adding that he was “overwhelmed” by the appointment.

“I couldn’t dream of a situation I’d want to be in more,” said Cuomo, who will also continue as an anchor of “Primetime,” a position he has held for two years.

“I hope to be able to let the audience know that we care what happens -- what happens right in their world, and what happens wrong in their world,” he added. “That’s the only I thing I can promise.”

With the appointment of Cuomo, an attorney who worked as a Fox News correspondent before joining ABC in 2000, ABC officials hope to fill out the program ahead of the fall season, when Meredith Vieira replaces Katie Couric on NBC’s “Today.”

The top-rated morning show has actually managed to increase its lead over “GMA” since the end of May, when Couric left, averaging 896,000 more a day than the ABC program.

But Murphy said he believes “GMA” will be able to muster a strong challenge in the coming year.

“You’d have to be an idiot to think it’s going to be an easy fight to win,” he said. “I have great hopes that the team we’re putting together is going to be really competitive and has a good chance of overtaking them, hopefully in the next year.

“What we’re assembling here is going to be a very classy team -- very hard-working, really bright journalists with a lot of class, yet who know how to kick back. They don’t have a need to go out on a limb and act like goofballs to have fun.”