A Nexstar Media Group executive in charge of daily programming at upstart cable news channel NewsNation is leaving the company, The Desk has learned.
In a memo to newsroom staffers this week, John Ferracane said he was leaving the network and the company to spend more time with his family in Los Angeles. Ferracane was based in Chicago during his time with the channel.
“When Michael first invited me to come help build NewsNation back in May 2021, I knew great things were possible,” Ferracane wrote in the memo. “There were only four shows at the time. And, in the coming days, this organization will be round-the-clock [with] news. News For All America. Incredible.”
Ferracane joined NewsNation in 2021 to help build out the network’s slate of live news programming, primarily during the prime-time and early morning hours (NewsNation still shows re-runs of “Blue Bloods” under a previously-arranged syndication agreement when the channel was called WGN America).
Before joining NewsNation, Ferracane worked as the showrunner for the reboot of Fox’s crime magazine show “America’s Most Wanted,” hosted by former ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Vargas, who started anchoring her own NewsNation program this month.
Prior to his work on America’s Most Wanted, Ferracane served as an executive broadcast producer for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” where he met his wife, ABC News correspondent Linzie Janis. The two were married in 2015, according to an ABC News report.
“WE’ve hardly seen each other in two years — it’s overdue,” Ferracane wrote in the memo this week, which was first reported by the television industry blog FTV Live.
It wasn’t clear from the memo if Ferracane has anything lined up in Los Angeles or if he will take an extended break before looking for new work.
