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This was an interesting behind-the-scenes of election prep at NBC News:

The other half of David and Peggy has decided to call it a career. David Johnson will soon join Peggy Finnegan in retirement land come Dec. 13th. The first of the last of the current big three old guards (KDKA's Ken Rice, WTAE's Mike Clark, and David from WPXI) to retire and call it a career. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wpxi.com/news/local/channel-11-news-anchor-david-johnson-announces-retirement/IGCUA2XFRREY7FV4GP7TEZ2SRA/%3foutputType=amp

That reminds me of when Peter Jennings attempted to stay on-air for 24 hours to cover every timezone in the New Year changeover on 12/31/99--1/1/00. By 3:00am, I knew I wanted to see who'd drop first, him or me. By 4:00am, his suit jacket was gone and he was doing a lot of staring off into the distance between words. I can only assume he was either staying at a hotel nearby or had someone to drive him home.

Abby Phillip has this odd disinterested expression on her face. She comes alive a little during panel discussions, but otherwise there's something off about her anchoring. I like Muir, he has a great switch between soft news, roving reporter, and hard newsman. These days I find myself going to ABC for breaking news coverage more than NBC. In theory, I think a cable network with partisan hosts from both parties could work. Something like Ben Shapiro and Rachel Maddow having primetime slots on the same channel. It's sad that cable news must resort to partisanship for profit, while companies like News Nation, and sometimes CNN, who play the middle, fail. Yes, both liberals and conservatives deserve a space to broadcast to like-minded individuals. The problems come when facts are twisted to support a certain narrative, and audiences only get their news from bias sources clouding their view of reality. Fox, MSNBC, and CNN all need to go. But this is about money, so the first two on that list will be sticking around.

That's probably a trial run for Gray to see if it works, especially with (for most stations) political revenue gone for a while.

Granted I don't like MSNBC but I found myself tuning into them and Fox News (not for neutral information) but to get both sides of election analysis commentary. Where was Fox getting their information from to call the election earlier than other networks? I tuned into CNN's panel discussions particularly with Abby Phillip. While I appreciated their attempt to have diverse opinions unlike the echo chamber on MSNBC, the conversation was messy and argumentative. NBC used to be my go-to for elections and I loved how they went all out with the ice skating rink and Democracy Plaza. But things have been so subdued since 2016. At least the ice skating rink and projecting results off the side of the building are still done. The ABC lead coverage by David Muir was pretty good, CBS not bad as well.

I know we have better graphics and we are a high school operation!! To the actual presentation of Amazon's offering, I'm a bit disappointed but I didn't go in expecting much given this clearly was made for profit.

You are correct… it’s a giant LED wall (which was okay). They definitely could have chosen a better background image and graphics overall. You would have thought Amazon would have invested some real $$$ into this venture.

I think Bravo is more popular than people here realize. The Real Housewives franchise, and the rest of their programming, holds a very strong appeal with a demographic advertisers love - and one that I suspect has little if any overlap with that of this board. Bravo plays a big role with Peacock as well. Sci Fi/Syfy has always been a bit of an outlier in the NBC Universal stable. Unlike USA, Bravo or Oxygen (pre-true crime revamp), it's overtly dedicated to a category, not a demographic. It strikes me as a hidden gem that could excel in the right hands but I don't think NBCU cares about it anymore.

From Amazon Election Night Live with Brian Williams A long list of current and former journalists (Shepherd Smith, etc..) from around the country, etc.. joined Williams in what appears to be a curved LED wall studio in LA.

The weekend evening newscasts aren't much of a loss with all three of their networks pre-empting with college sports freely, and the 7am-9am block was Fox exclusive, but they're certainly a skeleton crew to begin with there. And they seriously either need a new facility (saw it in May and the neighborhood is in a lot of flux) or to re-merge into WFSB. It really does feel like the stations in Springfield have become more and more just Hartford-New Haven market extensions, and for a long time the success of the Patriots could hide the struggles; not so much now.

I'm more annoyed by the aspect ratio being screwed up than by it not being in HD. And I'm pretty sure CNBC World isn't mostly after-hours trading.

Or just air NBC News Now; we're literally talking about thousands of viewers with channels like CNBC, FBN, Bloomberg and Cheddar. I have never understood the obsession with keeping primetime audiences when said audience is gone now. After hours trading is just all meme stock crypto bros no advertiser wants anyways. And the reason it's still in SD, even on the app is to drive people to the $30/month Pro app like it's still 2005 and nobody is streaming regularly.

Jesus those L3s are awful. They paid a design firm to make those — let that sink in. Yes, I think they should merge or at least have CNBC simulcast CNBC World after 7pm. Show foreign market coverage like Bloomberg does, instead of Shark Tank and American Greed.

Maybe Comcast should split their cable business from NBCUniversal..... ...sort of like how they were BEFORE they bought NBCUniversal......

Chris Wallace will leave cnn https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/chris-wallace-exit-cnn-1236207062/