WHY DID CBS, NBC LEAVE THE 2ND BIGGEST STORY OF THE DECADE SO SOON ?

[gregg75]

ABC was the only network that stayed with the O.B.L. story Sunday night and it paid
off big in ratings. Why did CBS and NBC bail so early on such a big story?

I've also not seen many SPECIAL REPORT interruptions today by the big 3. Had this
happened on President Bush's watch I have an idea everybody including the whitehouse
maid would have gotten a to speak live on national TV. Oh, well.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/05/rat...with-news-coverage-poised-to-win/#more-127515

 

[landtuna]

IMHO ABC stayed on way too long with the information they had at that time. I tuned in to watch a program and found the news underway which continued for another 50 minutes of constant repeating of the same old stuff. Then my local ABC station went to their nightly news and repeated the SOS at which time I turned it off and went to bed.

I couldn't believe some of ABC's network coverage had some old geezer on the air who lost his wife ten years ago in the WTC and all he did was rant about how 'justified' he felt. That is NOT news and is not worthy of what is supposed to be a major news organization.

There is a very good reason I very rarely watch ABC - for any reason. It was confirmed again last night.

 

[azumanga]

ABC was the only network that stayed with the O.B.L. story Sunday night and it paid
off big in ratings. Why did CBS and NBC bail so early on such a big story?

When you have nothing else to say, you just walk away, instead of repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

[mgsports]

CBS doesn't have it's own News Channel and didn't even call in in Couric or Pelley.
NBC has MSNBC and did call in Williams but not Brokaw.
Fox News Channel called in Brier and Van Struten.
CNN Wolf and King already work on Sunday's.
ABC George was in.

 

[fybush]

Brokaw was on NBC/MSNBC at some point after midnight ET, at least by phone.

 

[gregg75]

I thought NBC was doing the best...............maybe then a tie between CNN and ABC.

 

[searadiofreak]

True, NBC can fall back on MSNBC in such situations. Indeed, when NBC signed off they pointed viewers there.

As for the title of this thread, "2nd biggest story of the decade". Not sure I understand. 2001 was last decade. Or maybe you are talking about the past ten year period?

 

[KML0224]

Was the top story this decade (so far) the Japanese earthquake?

 

[Darth_vader]

I listened to KATU's coverage for about a half-hour last night, then went on to watch/do other things. I then tuned in to KGW's coverage, well, *yesterday* morning at 0130 (it's now midnight-'39 PDT on Tuesday as I write this) and found they were going on the same stuff KATU was hours earlier.

Then I tuned it out and for a nice contrast, watched "Sitting Ducks" on NBC Qubo channel. It was alright, not an episode I hadn't seen 1 000 times prior; the one where Bill dreams of flying, gets a satellite receiver and has quite a bit of misery putting up the dish and mast (*if* he can even get it up to the roof!) Whatever. I went to bed after that segment ended. Everything else on TV at that point was pretty dumb anyways.

@KML-224--
Probably.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

They local stations had get in their Sunday night news and late sunday night syndicated shows

 

[whit979]

As for the title of this thread, "2nd biggest story of the decade". Not sure I understand. 2001 was last decade. Or maybe you are talking about the past ten year period?

Yeah, I personally would vote for Katrina being #2 in the past ten years. I dunno. I suppose we'll know the gravity of bin Laden's death a few years from now; if his death crushes Al Qaeda altogether then I'd say it's #2.

 

[firepoint525]

IMHO ABC stayed on way too long with the information they had at that time. I tuned in to watch a program and found the news underway which continued for another 50 minutes of constant repeating of the same old stuff. Then my local ABC station went to their nightly news and repeated the SOS at which time I turned it off and went to bed.
I couldn't believe some of ABC's network coverage had some old geezer on the air who lost his wife ten years ago in the WTC and all he did was rant about how 'justified' he felt. That is NOT news and is not worthy of what is supposed to be a major news organization.
There is a very good reason I very rarely watch ABC - for any reason. It was confirmed again last night.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how much of a ratings "win" you could call this for ABC, when it was so late at night that most everyone, particularly on the east coast, had already gone to bed. (And those of us on central time gave up on it, too.) It might have been more of a "default" win for ABC, if CBS and NBC bailed "early."

When you have nothing else to say, you just walk away, instead of repeating the same thing over and over again.

I partly blame the White House for that one. They apparently promised a presidential speech at a certain time, then didn't deliver it at that time, leaving the networks to fend for themselves, and b.s. in the meantime. It is that b.s.ing that caused me to give up on them, and go to bed. When it became evident that a speech was not going to be given until whatever time, they should have given the intervening time (if there was still enough time left) back to the stations for late local news.

I was especially annoyed because channel 2 here in Nashville had promoted a documentary about last year's flooding here, at 10:35 following the local news, then didn't get to air it because of Bin Laden coverage.

Personally, I think that the terrorist coward Bin Laden has already received too much coverage. Let him roast! :

 

[recto101]

CBS has radio stations like KNX and KCBS for details of Bin Ladens death..

 

[flashback]

the white house should have waited for all the details needed for the time to be right and alerted every one. a few minuites i can understand but an hour is a bit much.

how much did each station lose in that hour by not showing the comercials they had lined up?

 

[MarcB]

I was on Facebook Sunday Night. Around 10:20 I saw this on Facebook:

I-98.3 - AP Reporting President to Address Nation at 10:30PM. Subject Unknown.

A bunch of us were speculating under that post about what it could be. Several of us thought maybe the latest about what was happening in Libya. Several minutes later whomever was monitoring I-98.3's Facebook Page made the announcement that Bin Laden was dead. This was long before any of the BIG 4 broke in.

I-98.3 is WILI-FM Willimantic, Connecticut. They're a CHR station owned by Hall Communications. They have an AM sister station AM 14 Good Company. That's probably where they get their AP information from.

 

[flashback]

billy cunningham from cincinatti released the news 45 minuites before the offical announcment.

 

[ercjncpr]

ABC was the only network that stayed with the O.B.L. story Sunday night and it paid
off big in ratings. Why did CBS and NBC bail so early on such a big story?

I've also not seen many SPECIAL REPORT interruptions today by the big 3. Had this
happened on President Bush's watch I have an idea everybody including the whitehouse
maid would have gotten a to speak live on national TV. Oh, well.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/05/rat...with-news-coverage-poised-to-win/#more-127515

because they are not CNN,FNC or MSNBC

 

[DToTheJ]

billy cunningham from cincinatti released the news 45 minuites before the offical announcment.

And with him hosting one of the few live Sunday late evening shows, I bet this was a coup for him that night.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

IMHO ABC stayed on way too long with the information they had at that time. I tuned in to watch a program and found the news underway which continued for another 50 minutes of constant repeating of the same old stuff. Then my local ABC station went to their nightly news and repeated the SOS at which time I turned it off and went to bed.

Time Zones come into play. Here on the East Coast, the evening news was over and done before the President made his announcement. Whatever the networks did as follow up pushed up against Midnight and spilled over into the wee morning hours.

I hadn't stopped to calibrate this. I guess The President went on the air at 8:35 P.M. California time? I guess programming executives living on the East Coast had a different view of what to do at 1 A.M. in the morning while programming exectuves operation on the West Coast were evaluating what to do at 9 P.M.

 

[landtuna]

This type of overboard reporting seems to happen on any story perceived as having unique interest. Here in the middle of the Sonoran Desert we get endless stories on weather segments about the flooding in the Mississippi River Valley. Anything to pump up drama and (hopefully) viewers.

Back to the original subject.....my local affiliate is not an ABC O&O so I doubt their decision to keep repeating the original skimpy story on OBL's death was directed by New York suits. They could easily returned to normal programming with a crawler stating what was known at the time (very little as it turns out). To me, events like this are nothing more than an excuse to get the news talking heads in front of the camera at every opportunity and in their most breathless mode.