The broadcast networks are ramping up for some prime primetime viewing across various platforms as the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection prepares for hearings this Thursday (June 9).

It will be, arguably, the most high-profile investigative hearings since Watergate, to which the Trump-fueled election protest has been compared. The Senate Watergate Committee hearings ran from May 17 to Nov. 15, 1973, and were covered gavel to gavel by public television.

This time around, commercial networks and outlets of all stripes, and with an assist from streaming platforms, will be blanketing the proceedings.

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The “Jan. 6” hearing will be June 9, starting at 8 p.m., a primetime slot certainly meant to give the public a chance to tune in after work as the committee continues its work.

NBC News‘s Lester Holt will anchor NBC News Special Report coverage starting at 8 p.m. on that network and streaming service NBC News Now.

Holt will be joined by, among others, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson, chief White House correspondent Kristen Welker, NBC News correspondent Pete Williams and Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor.

NBC News Digital will live-blog the hearings with real-time updates and analysis. There will also be extensive cable coverage on MSNBC, anchored by Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid.

Fox News Media will be blanketing the airwaves, cable services and broadband connections with coverage anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum in primetime, with that coverage offered to Fox broadcast affiliates.

Coverage will air live on Fox News Channel (in prime time programming as news warrants), on Fox Business Network, and live-streamed on Fox News Digital for free as well as on subscription streaming service Fox Nation.

Starting at 11 p.m. and pre-empting Gutfeld!, Fox News@Night anchor/chief legal correspondent Shannon Bream will anchor a two-hour live special with Baier and MacCallum.

CBS News will air a prime time special on the network at 8-10 p.m., according to a spokesperson--it was still firming up plans at press time. CBS Evening News anchor/managing editor Norah O'Donnell will anchor. CBS coverage will also be carried on CBS News Streaming, which will stream any subsequent Jan. 6 Committee hearings as well, the next one of which is scheduled for June. 13. 

Joining O'Donnell on the coverage will be chief political analyst John Dickerson, who covered the insurrection; chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa who, along with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, broke the story of texts from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife about overturning the election; chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes, and chief national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues, who also reported on the insurrection.

Also part of the coverage will be congressional correspondents Nikole Killion and Scott MacFarlane.

PBS NewsHour will offer noncommercial stations live coverage of the hearings on broadcast, online, and social media beginning at 8 p.m. June 9 and 10 a.m. June 13.

Coverage will be anchored by NewsHour managing editor Judy Woodruff, with reporting by chief correspondent Amna Nawaz, Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins (from the Capitol), and chief Washington correspondent Geoff Bennett (from the White House).■

With no Olympic Games airing this summer, national TV ad spending was down 27% in August, according to the latest figures from Standard Media Index.

Spending on broadcast was down 54% in the month. Of the TV ad spending on the Olympics last year, 92% went to broadcast with only 8% going to cable. Still, cable ad spending was down 1% for the month, according to SMI.

On cable, ESPN was up 27% from a year ago, with the sports leader airing NFL preseason games and more of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships taking place in August. ESPN also got higher rates for Major League Baseball games.

Other cable networks showing gains included Discovery Channel, jumping 16%; Food Network, taking a 10% bigger bite; TBS, up 5%; and HGTV, edging up 1.5%.

SMI said ad revenue at the cable news networks continued to grow, but at less intense rate. Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN as a group were up 6%, but for the first time this year, Fox News was down, taking in 2.5% less than a year ago. MSNBC was up a whopping 26% and CNN was up 8%.CNN was up 8% and MSNBC.

So far this year, the cable news networks are up 19%, with MSNBC up 41%, CNN up 18% and Fox News up 15%. SMI noted that MSNBC started the year with the lowest average commercial prices, creating the opportunity for a steeper percentage gain.

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Among the Big 3 broadcasters, NBC, which aired the Rio games a year ago, was down 82% in August ad revenue. With the NFL season starting and no Olympic competition, CBS was up 17% and Fox was up 14%. ABC was down 1%.

Among the Spanish-language broadcast networks, Univision was up 3%, while Telemundo, which aired the Olympics in Spanish, was down 7%.

Strong performers in the month included ABC’s The Bachelorette. The price for spots on the reality show was up 50% to $131,000 from a year ago and the series brought in nearly 80% more revenue. The summer run of Saturday Night Live fetched $124,000 per spot.

The total ad market was down 7% in August compared with a year ago when the Olympics were going on. So far in 2017, ad spending is up 2.4%, compared with the first eight months of 2016.

Despite the lack of the games, digital was up 12%.

“The Olympics in August 2016 make meaningful year-on-year comparisons tricky, but our data did show some insights that are worth focusing on," said James Fennessy, CEO of Standard Media Index. "The overall market is up 2.4% on a year-to-date basis, with only a 4% year-to-date loss on TV, which shows that a lot of Olympics dollars had been redirected into the Games from existing budgets.

“And, while the digital market has started to recover from the brand safety concerns earlier this year, there is no doubt that growth has been impacted and publishers like YouTube are looking at more modest growth in the 10% region for the current quarter," Fennessy added.

One of the more fascinating ratings trends developing thus far in 2017 has been the strong, post-presidential election performance of cable news networks.

Not surprisingly, ratings for Fox News Channel, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC trended up in 2016 during a year that featured a particularly intense and heavy news-driven presidential campaign. Adult viewers spent more than 73.5 billion minutes consuming news in an average week last year, an 18% increase from the prior year, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for fourth quarter 2016.

Most of the increases were generated by the national cable news networks. Viewers consumed 27.1 billion minutes of news from those channels during the year, compared to 18.8 billion in 2015, according to the report. By comparison, national broadcast TV news drew 14.3 billion minutes of news consumption in 2016, while local broadcast TV news generated 15.1 billion minutes.

The increases were solid across all age demos, including the elusive millennial audience. In fact, millennial viewers spent more time on a weekly basis in 2016 getting their news from national cable news channels than from any other source, with the exception of local radio, according to Nielsen. Ethnic groups also preferred to get their news fix from national cable news outlets compared to any other source, according to the report.

Overall, viewers spent more than six hours per week consuming cable news in 2016, up from more than four hours a week during the year of the 2012 campaign, according to Nielsen.

Once the election was over, most industry observers believed that cable news network viewership would return to traditional levels. Yet the strength of cable news network ratings has continued after the election and into President Donald Trump’s first 100 days.

Viewer fixation on cable news spilled into the first month of 2017 through Trump’s inauguration and the official transfer of power. Adult viewers averaged more than two hours per week watching national cable news in January, which was 20% higher than in January 2016, according to Nielsen.

Well into the first quarter of 2017, the appeal of cable news has yet to abate. Fox News was easily the most watched cable network in primetime and on a total day basis during the quarter, with MSNBC and CNN finishing among the top 15 most watched networks in primetime during the period, as the health-care law battle, investigations over alleged Trump administration Russian ties and wiretapping charges dominated coverage.

It’s arguable whether the cable news genre can continue its torrid ratings pace for the rest of 2017. But if the first quarter is any indication, it’s certainly possible that cable news networks could remarkably match or surpass their 2016 election ratings tallies.

PHOTO:Reports on the Trump administration's first 100 days -- such as CNN's coverage of the $21.6 million the president's golf trips to his Mara Lago Resort have cost taxpayers in the first 80 days vs. the $97 million President Obama's travel cost over his two terms -- are keeping cable news network ratings up.

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When Al Jazeera America officially closes its doors April 12, it will leave a void among emerging cable news network voices that will be difficult to fill, industry observers said.

The three-year-old network, which this past February announced it would close down after unsuccessfully attempting to compete with cable’s upper echelon of news networks in Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC, will most likely not be replaced on most cable and satellite lineups with other emerging networks such as TheBlaze, Fusion, Newsmax TV or One America News Network, even as the 2016 political campaign heats up and drives news-network ratings.

ELECTION-YEAR RELEVANCE

Those emerging cable-news networks say the loss of Al Jazeera America does not signal a diminishing value for alternative voices beyond the big three cable news networks. Rather, it’s a realization that in a crowded, evolving pay TV marketplace, television news, like politics, is a di_ cult arena in which to rack up wins.

“There’s no doubt there’s an opportunity, and the live component of news in general preserves the linear platforms and makes them relevant,” said Charles Herring, president of Herring Networks, which owns conservative-leaning One America News. “MVPDs are always looking for live content, whether it’s news or sports, and a lot of the viewers tune to the linear offering to watch breaking news — that’s where the latest source of information is.”

Al Jazeera America, which debuted in 2013 after the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media purchased the former Current TV network from former Vice President Al Gore and other investors for $500 million, will sign off with more than 60 million subscribers across numerous pay TV affiliates, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon Communications’s Fios TV.

Several potential suitors, including Herring, have looked at purchasing Al Jazeera America’s assets, as well as its affiliate agreements, but at press time no deals were thought to be imminent.

“We’ve taken a very good look at the opportunities around Al Jazeera closing,” Herring said, although he would not provide specifics.

With distributors looking to pare down channel lineups amid rising programming costs and a loss of subscribers turning to less-expensive streaming services, industry executives say its unlikely any cable network will replace Al Jazeera America on distributor lineups.

“What we have found is the distributors are not saying to themselves, ‘Oh, we lost Al Jazeera and we need to fill that hole,’” Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy said. “I think there’s a lot of anxiety on the operator side of the business where they are not looking for new channels, and Al Jazeera was pushed on them because of existing deals.”

Indeed, Comcast and another major distributor confirmed to Multichannel News that they don’t plan to fill Al Jazeera America’s channel slot with a new or existing programmer.

Al Jazeera America’s demise comes as the unpredictable and contentious 2016 presidential campaign is driving big ratings for cable news networks. Fox News has won the lion’s share of weekly cable primetime ratings races so far this year, and is primed to finish the first quarter as the most-watched cable network in primetime.

CNN and MSNBC are also posting significant viewership upticks in ratings during the first quarter of 2016.

While both Herring and Ruddy lamented the loss of Al Jazeera America’s voice in the cable news landscape, they both said that there remains a need for independent news outlets that provide viewers with alternative voices to the big cable news networks.

“I’m always disappointed when a news channel disappears because I believe there is strength in diversity,” said Ruddy. “The other channels are much more polarizing, and the public would like a more informational-based channel.”

Added Herring: “We’re having the most interesting election taking place right now, and I do not recall another election that was important, entertaining and thought provoking. … I haven’t come across a single individual that doesn’t have a strong opinion on the candidates. It’s an important part of our democracy to ensure that all this information gets out to the viewers so that they can make an informed decision regardless of where one might fall.”

In an effort to assure its voice is heard, Herring earlier this month filed suit against AT&T, saying the company is reneging on a promise to carry its One America News and AWE networks on DirecTV. In a statement AT&T claimed the lawsuit to be “baseless,” adding that it has offered to carry both channels on DirecTV at reasonable, market-based terms.”

Herring said the networks would only cost 6 cents per channel, per month, which equates to 72 cents per year. “Although DirecTV will always take the position that the rates being requested are out of line and not fair and not what the market demanded, it’s not a fact,” he said.

STILL REACHING OUT

Newsmax’s Ruddy said the network will continue to secure distribution deals with multichannel distributors despite the difficult marketplace. He said Newsmax isn’t banking on benefitting from Al Jazeera’s demise, and said the 46 million-subscriber network actually had greater reach than Al Jazeera America with several distributors, including DirecTV.

“We looked at Al Jazeera, and the problem is that there is not a lot of interest by Al Jazeera to transfer agreements, and there’s not a lot of interest among the operators to fill those holes with channels just for the sake of filling them,” he said. “Newsmax has never seen itself as having to depend on one network or another failing — we’ve always been competing with ourselves to build a better product and a bigger audience.”