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| David Muir anchoring special semiquincentennial coverage of Disney Celebrates America 250 from atop ABC News world headquarters at the Robert A. Iger Building in New York City. (ABC News) |
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| GMA First Look and World News Now co-anchors Sophie Flay and Hanna Battah reporting in Rhode Island for Disney Celebrates America telecast. (ABC News) |
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| ABC's World News Tonight anchor David Muir in New York City chatting with ESPN's SportsCenter anchors Kevin Negandhi and Christine Williamson in Bristol, Connecticut during the 24-hour semiquincentennial telecast Disney Celebrates America. (ABC News/ESPN) |
In an celebration of the United States of America's 250th semiquincentennial, no major broadcast network threw an one big patriotism party like ABC. To captured the magic from that was ABC 2000 Today: An Celebration of the Millennium from 26 years ago anchored by Peter Jennings, the network owned by The Walt Disney Company went live for 24 straight hours with "Disney Celebrates America" beginning late Friday night and onto the Forth of July on Saturday led by David Muir and an team of reporters & experts from across Disney divisions including ABC News, ABC-owned stations & affiliates, ESPN and National Geographic (https://abc.com/news/a1c1f857-b25c-48b6-a70d-f827fc16b7dc/category/1138628). Nearly 50 million viewers tuned in to ABC alone for 24-hours of celebration coverage including in primetime defeating NBC's telecast of the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks show, according to the network Nashville's Star-Spangled Bash drew an 5.44 million for ABC and it was the No. 1 primetime show on broadcast television in all demos that Saturday holiday (https://deadline.com/2026/07/july-4-ratings-abc-david-muir-1236978308/).
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| Disney Celebrates America aired on across the ABC Television and Radio Networks as well as cable channels National Geographic, FX and Freeform, and streaming on ABC News Live, Disney+, Hulu and the ESPN app. (American Broadcasting Companies Inc.) |
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| ESPN's Hannah Storm contributed to Disney Celebrates America telecast anchoring from outside SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles where the NFL Super Bowl LXI will take place February 14, 2027 airing on ABC and ESPN. (ESPN) |
Disney spend an year to worked on multi-platform America 250 telecast in addition to the ABC network, the ABC News Live streaming channel and ABC News Radio, that also included simulcasts airing on Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic, Freeform, FX and ESPN (both ESPN and ESPN2 took part in some simulcasts with ABC for sports-related telecast such as the Nathan's Eating Hot Dog Contest and an two-hour SportsCenter but the two linear channels continued to air regular sports programming at other times, the ESPN app however streamed the entire ABC News event), the children's networks Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Jr. remained with normal programs as well. Disney Parks in both Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World in Orlando also held events over Independence Day weekend to celebrated the nation's 250th milestone. As an result for the 24-hour event, Jimmy Kimmel Live was preempted for Party Across America with GMA's Sam Champion, Lara Spencer and ABC News Prime anchor Linsey Davis co-anchored the 11pm ET (or 11:35pm ET after local news in some areas) special followed an special edition of Nightline. Full ABC stations' local morning and early evening newscasts were also preempted but allowed anchor crews in most cities including flagship New York City O&O station WABC-TV to presented local cut-ins during Good Morning America and Hometowns & Heroes in the morning and Dreamers & Innovators and SportsCenter Celebrates America 250 in the afternoon. The syndicated Weekend Adventure educational E/I block were pre-empted as well and most ABC stations had to rescheduled Hearst's shows the following day or the week ahead depending where they live.
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| Rebecca Jarvis in her hometown from Minneapolis, MN reported for Disney Celebrates America with David Muir anchored from New York. (ABC News) |
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| Eyewitness News weeknight anchor team of Joe Torres and Tanya Rivero doing local news cut-ins for WABC-TV in New York City during ABC's SportsCenter Celebrates America 250 special. (American Broadcasting Companies Inc.) |
Like Jennings before, his World News Tonight successor Muir anchored for almost 24 hours broadcasting from atop ABC News world headquarters at their new Robert A. Iger building and unlike the other two major networks (NBC and CBS) televised their respected America 250 specials late that evening, the weather for almost the entire day was mostly perfect for the ABC crew. Correspondents, local anchors & reporters, ESPN personalities and National Geographic explorers contributed to Disney Celebrates America telecast including those of the news division reporting from each state like Ginger Zee in Michigan, Gio Benitez in Manie, Mary K. Bruce in Washington, Lee Goldberg in New York, Rebecca Jarvis in Minneapolis and KGO anchor Nancy Chen in San Francisco. ESPN hosts & anchors also appeared in the broadcast to talked the history of sports in America including Joe Buck, Hannah Storm, Chris Berman, Stephen A. Smith, Nicole Briscoe as well as Kevin Negandhi and Christine Williamson hosted an two-hour edition of SportsCenter.
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| David Muir visited the Grand Canyon for the ABC News and National Geographic special "Seven Wonders of America" part of Disney Celebrates America. (ABC News/National Geographic) |
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| National Geographic Explorer Ami Vitale interviewed at the National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington D.C. for ABC's special July 4th telecast of Disney Celebrates America. (ABC News/National Geographic) |
For the telecast itself hours into the very first dawn of Independence Day, David Muir welcomed the first sunrise occurred just after 5am ET in Manie and took viewers to places across the nation with the teams at Disney throughout the morning while presented fascinating stories inspired the American institution. After Joey Chestnut won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, it was time to revealed the "Seven Wonders of America" as ABC News anchors teamed with National Geographic Explorers highlighting the Seven Natural Wonders of America from Muir visiting the Grand Canyon landmark to Juju Chang exploring the volcanoes in Hawaii and from Diane Sawyer hiking into the Great Smoky National Park to Michael Strahan seeing the waters of Niagara Falls. Plus, ABC News took an inside look at the new National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington D.C. which had recently opened to the public back in late June, Seven Wonders of America was the No. 1 non-sports program during the afternoon drew 4.5 million total viewers watching the National Geographic special on ABC (Stream the ABC/National Geographic special anytime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHghYlymvCo). When the night was about to come to an end, Ryan Seacrest capped-off the evening with the best of Southern music in Disney Celebrates America: Nashville's Star-Spangled Bash where ABC for the first time topped NBC's annual Macy's 4th of July fireworks show in 16 years as well as the last-place CBS's disastrous Great American Block Party telecast from Washington D.C. (you can learn more on that in the link below, https://www.thedailybeast.com/cbs-insiders-spill-on-maga-coded-anchor-tony-dokoupils-disastrous-july-4-broadcast/).
Here are the final moments post-credits in an quick toss-over from Ryan Seacrest in Nashville to David Muir in New York as ABC concluded the 24-hour Disney Celebrates America telecast:
Seacrest: Amazing! Such a blast live from Nashville. Can you believe the spectacular sight in the sky above the city? Thank you so much spending America's birthday with us this evening. Thanks to all of you here in Nashville and to all of you watching at home. Thank you Emily Ann Roberts, John Crist and all of our amazing performers. The hundreds of thousands of friends that we have made here tonight, so fun and of course you at home. Stay with us as it continues, this unprecedented historic milestone. Happy Birthday America, here is to 250 more! Now with final words on the 24 hours of Disney Celebrates America we go back to David Muir from ABC World News Tonight. From Nashville, good night America!
Muir: Thank you, that was extraordinary. Nashville and a course this country celebrating the Fourth. Thank you so much at home for being along for the ride in the last 24 hours as we celebrated the Wonders of America. Happy 250th and from all of us here at ABC News and The Walt Disney Company. I'm David Muir, happy Fourth! Good night.
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| Kevin Negandhi and Christine Williamson anchored an special two-hour ABC edition of SportsCenter Celebrates America 250 from the ESPN studios in Bristol, Connecticut. (ESPN) |
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| Ryan Seacrest capped-out the 24-hour semiquincentennial telecast with Disney Celebrates America: Nashville's Star-Spangled Bash from the Music City in Nashville, Tennessee. (American Broadcasting Companies Inc.) |
To recap, Disney Celebrates America was an success in both ratings, promotional and the presentation of bringing stories within the past 250th years in the country's history dated back to the Decoration of Independence. ABC News (or the American Broadcasting Company they originally called it as an whole) had done it again from presenting 24-hours of millennium coverage to the world and more than 24-hours on-air of their last non-stop breaking news coverage that we all remembered back on September 11, 2001 to the recently 24-hours of celebrating the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If this was not an one-done prep, there's hope it could return again in the near future because that's the Disney way of bringing people together.
ABC posted the entire ratings results from the 24-hour non-stop semiquincentennial Disney Celebrates America telecast on the link below:
ABC News Radio in addition to offered an TV simulcast of Disney Celebrates America to over 1,400 radio stations in the United States, also presented an three-hour special during the Fourth of July weekend titled America 250: The Hero Next Door which includes stories of courage, patriotism and sacrifice from the 9/11 generation of American military veterans and everyday heroes, plus an conversation for ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz's new book "The Hero Next Door: Stories of Patriotism and Purpose." The ABC News Radio special is available now online to stream or wherever you get your podcasts from ABC Audio:
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