Brian Williams’ suspension runs through August, but NBC might be forced to make a decision on his future sooner since the upfronts start next month. People on both sides of the negotiations, including some at NBC, say it is unlikely that Lack and NBC will go into the upfronts without resolving Williams’ status beforehand.
A former newspaper reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Bob Schieffer joined CBS News in 1969 and has been the network’s chief Washington correspondent since 1992. He began at the political affairs show “Face the Nation” in 1991, asking direct questions to politicians in a Texas twang.
ABC News today named Reena Ninan has been named co-anchor of World News Now. She joins T.J. Holmes as the overnight morning show’s co-anchor; Ninan will also be co-anchoring America This Morning.
Exclusives
ABC News will air a two-hour interview between Diane Sawyer and Bruce Jenner, the former Olympian whose quest for sexual identity has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks. The special’s air date falls on the second day of TV’s May sweeps period, April 24.
NBC’s Lester Holt may be the most-watched evening-news anchor in the United States, but for advertisers, ABC’s David Muir is emerging as a favorite. Muir’s World News Tonight broadcast on ABC has won more of the viewers advertisers covet for three consecutive weeks, a situation that threatens to undermine NBC Nightly News while that program is in transition.
With the 2016 election season already in full swing, the Sunday morning ritual of listening to people shout over each other about politics will be a little more diverse, if the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda gets its way.
Is Candy Crowley Headed To ABC News?
NBC News is coming under fire from both media buyers and competitors for quietly using late-night rebroadcasts of Nightly News to bump up its ratings totals.
NBC’s Nightly News remains the most-watched evening newscast in the United States. For Madison Avenue, however, that information may provide cold comfort. For the second week in a row, ABC’s World News lured more of the viewers advertisers in news programming desire — people 25-54 — than NBC’s Nightly News. The last time ABC trumped NBC in that category in the evening news slot for two consecutive weeks came in October of last year, according to Nielsen.
CBS President-CEO Leslie Moonves said CBS News President David Rhodes has extended his contract through February 2019. Rhodes has been president of CBS News since 2011.
Over the past seven weeks, almost a dozen NBC stations have been airing Nightly News in the middle of the night, usually after 2 a.m. While the potential audience in that hour is tiny, so is the gap between NBC and ABC’s World News Tonight in the evening news ratings race, and every eyeball counts.
The ABC News Washington D.C. Bureau has laid off a dozen employees. The plan, according to Bureau Chief Jonathan Greenberger, is to “shift away from platform-based teams and towards content-based teams, which will be responsible for reporting and storytelling across all of our platforms.”
ABC’s David Muir triumphed over NBC’s Lester Holt for the second time in five weeks, winning more of the evening news viewers advertisers care most about, as the switch to Daylight Saving Time severely crimped NBC’s dominance in the evening news wars.
NEW YORK (AP) — The CBS News crime franchise “48 Hours” this week launches a series of episodes on cold cases that’s aimed at satisfying an increased appetite among viewers […]
Nancy Snyderman is stepping down as chief medical editor at NBC News. Snyderman took a leave of absence after she was caught in New Jersey violating a quarantine after being exposed to the Ebola virus while covering the epidemic in Liberia.
ABC and Yahoo are expanding their relationship highlighted by Katie Couric’s reports being distributed across ABC News and Yahoo talent hitting Good Morning America. Beginning today, content across Disney/ABC Television Group will be featured on Yahoo. On March 16, Good Morning America will launch a new “Yahoo Your Day” daily series, featuring top Yahoo editors.
Lisa Myers, former senior investigative correspondent for NBC: “I think the primary mission of journalism is to hold the powerful accountable, be they in government or corporate America. There is less and less interest in network television today holding the White House or any other part of government accountable. I fear there is a calculation that the audiences they are trying to reach don’t care that much about the serious news. I think most of the political coverage these days has all the depth of Twitter.”
NBC’s Nightly News trumped both its rivals in nabbing eyeballs in the last week, according to the latest Nielsen data. The victory came even as the NBC newscast lost some of the most important viewers — the kind advertisers covet.
NBCUniversal formally announced today that Lack is returning to the company in the role he had from 1993 to 2001, albeit with a new title — chairman of NBC News and MSNBC. When he gets back to his old office in Rockefeller Center, he’ll be greeted with a welcome basket full of problems that include handling the future of his close friend NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors, where Andrew Lack has worked just since January, has announced his departure. NBCUniversal yesterday was wrapping up talks to bring back Lack as news chief in hopes of restoring the division’s stature.
Former NBC News president Andrew Lack’s return to 30 Rock — he is currently in talks about a “top job” in the news division — would catalyze a major shakeup among the executive leadership and would likely signal Brian Williams’ return to the network, current and former high-level NBC News staff say.
An executive at NBC Universal who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a personnel matter said that if an agreement is reached, Lack, a veteran executive who ran NBC’s news division from 1993 to 2001, would return in a lead role at the NBC News Group, which includes NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC. He would bring extensive news experience in the U.S. market to a leadership team that now lacks it.
The network said Monday that Cecilia Vega, who has worked for ABC since 2011 after working in local news in San Francisco, will work on Saturdays. Tom Llamas, who came to ABC from NBC’s New York affiliate, will work Sunday night.
The Chicken Littles who squawked that the sky was falling after Lester Holt’s first week filling in for Brian Williams behind the NBC Nightly News desk have fallen silent, as the Feb. 16 to Feb. 20 newscasts put up huge ratings. Holt’s second week as the Nightly News anchor averaged 10.1 million viewers, per Nielsen figures, only the fourth time this season that NBC has reached that milestone. No other nightly newscast has hit that mark in eight seasons.
The saturated news media coverage of the events leading to NBC’s suspension of the anchor Brian Williams last week left many people wondering what all the fuss was about. In the age of digital, fragmented media, who watches network news, anyway? The answer may surprise you.
NBC news isn’t seeing any serious collateral ratings damage from suspending anchor Brian Williams over false statements he made about his Iraq reporting.
