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What Happened to Free Streaming "NBC News Now"?

G

Gregg.

Not long ago, it seemed NBC was trying to build this into a good alternative to the news channels you have to pay for such as co-owned MSNBC and CNN. NBC News Now (available in many ways including You Tube, Peacock and its own website) lured several big names over.

From MSNBC it brought Hallie Jackson. From Meet The Press it got Chuck Todd. And from NPR it hired Joshua Johnson. They're all good news hosts and are just as skilled as the anchors on the pay news channels.

Hallie Jackson got a two-hour afternoon show (which she's still doing). Joshua Johnson got a two-hour evening show (which has disappeared along with him). And Chuck Todd decided to retire from Meet The Press to just be the network's political chief. (It seems his replacement, Kristen Welker, only does the weekday afternoon version occasionally.)

Since I have cable TV, I wasn't watching NBC News Now much. But it seemed it had many more anchors and live hours than it does now. Currently, it has only two hours of live shows in the evening, one hour from Tom LLamas and one from Gadi Schwartz. They keep getting repeated and repeated all night, along with past NBC News shows like Dateline, along with Lester Holt's NBC Nightly News. There is no live programming on weekends that I know of. It's all prerecorded shows.

I suppose NBC wanted to be ready as more people "cut the cord" to their cable service. Were there layoffs that I didn't notice? Is NBC no longer trying to catch cord-cutters? What happened?
 
I only know they cancelled Joshua Johnson’s show and whatever deal they offered him to remain with NBC (I think it was to be a contributor but not 100% sure) he declined. BTW MSNBC lured him from NPR where he hosted a regular weekend show until they moved him to the streaming network. He is now doing a podcast (“The Night Light”)
 
Gregg. said:
From MSNBC it brought Hallie Jackson. From Meet The Press it got Chuck Todd. And from NPR it hired Joshua Johnson. They're all good news hosts and are just as skilled as the anchors on the pay news channels.
Click to expand...
Gregg. said:
Joshua Johnson got a two-hour evening show (which has disappeared along with him).
Click to expand...
Larry said:
I only know they cancelled Joshua Johnson’s show and whatever deal they offered him to remain with NBC (I think it was to be a contributor but not 100% sure) he declined. BTW MSNBC lured him from NPR where he hosted a regular weekend show until they moved him to the streaming network. He is now doing a podcast (“The Night Light”)
Click to expand...
Just so the record's accurate, Joshua Johnson never directly worked for NPR. He went from South Florida's WLRN to San Francisco's KQED to Washington's WAMU, where he took over when Diane Ream retired, hosting the relaunched "1-A" (as in "1st Amendment"). MSNBC signed him after two years at 1-A, where he initially hosted a weekend evening program, "The Week with Joshua Johnson". He transitioned to the streaming platform, and apparently bailed (or was released) after a year, about 11 months ago.
 
Gregg. said:
Not long ago, it seemed NBC was trying to build this into a good alternative to the news channels you have to pay for such as co-owned MSNBC and CNN. NBC News Now (available in many ways including You Tube, Peacock and its own website) lured several big names over.

From MSNBC it brought Hallie Jackson. From Meet The Press it got Chuck Todd. And from NPR it hired Joshua Johnson. They're all good news hosts and are just as skilled as the anchors on the pay news channels.

Hallie Jackson got a two-hour afternoon show (which she's still doing). Joshua Johnson got a two-hour evening show (which has disappeared along with him). And Chuck Todd decided to retire from Meet The Press to just be the network's political chief. (It seems his replacement, Kristen Welker, only does the weekday afternoon version occasionally.)

Since I have cable TV, I wasn't watching NBC News Now much. But it seemed it had many more anchors and live hours than it does now. Currently, it has only two hours of live shows in the evening, one hour from Tom LLamas and one from Gadi Schwartz. They keep getting repeated and repeated all night, along with past NBC News shows like Dateline, along with Lester Holt's NBC Nightly News. There is no live programming on weekends that I know of. It's all prerecorded shows.

I suppose NBC wanted to be ready as more people "cut the cord" to their cable service. Were there layoffs that I didn't notice? Is NBC no longer trying to catch cord-cutters? What happened?
Click to expand...
NBC is catching cord cutters but it's directly to the Peacock app.
 
>>>Just so the record's accurate, Joshua Johnson never directly worked for NPR.<<<

True. He hosted "1A" on many NPR stations. But it was produced by WAMU, the NPR affiliate in Washington. I guess only Morning Edition and All Things Considered are true NPR shows. Most others are produced by an NPR affiliate. "Fresh Air" is produced by WHYY Philadelphia and "Here & Now" is produced by WBUR Boston.
 
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