Hoda Kotb, co-anchor on Today, announced on the NBC morning show September 26 that she will step down early next year. She said she made that decision after turning 60 last month. 

"I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new," an emotional Kotb said. 

Kotb and Savannah Guthrie have been co-anchors since 2018. Guthrie said the Today team doesn’t “want to imagine this place without you.” 

In a memo to colleagues, Kotb said her daughters, who are 7 and 5, and her mother, "need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie."

Kotb joined NBC News as a correspondent for Dateline in 1998 and joined the Today team in 2007, co-hosting the fourth hour alongside Kathie Lee Gifford. In addition to anchoring Today alongside Guthrie, Kotb co-hosts the fourth hour with Jenna Bush Hager.

Kotb temporarily stepped into the Today co-anchor role in November 2017 after Matt Lauer was fired. She took over co-anchor duties permanently at the start of 2018. 

Her staff memo said: “There’s plenty of time to talk about what’s ahead for all of us. But one thing I know for sure right now is this: everything’s going to be just fine. The Peacock’s feathers are never ruffled … no matter who comes or goes. ‘TODAY’ and its amazing people — all of you — never waver. You always weather change with grace.”

On the air, an emotional Guthrie said, “When you look around and see these tears, they are love. You are so loved.”

Kotb was inducted into the B+C Hall of Fame in 2022. 

Broadcast networks broken into regular programming Sunday afternoon to cover the news that President Joe Biden has decided to drop out of the race for re-election.

A few minutes after 2 p.m. ET, NBC News senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson reported on the news during a special report. She was joined during the report by Kristen Welker, Kelly O'Donnell, Yamiche Alcindor and Allie Raffa.

O’Donnell talked about how the pressure had been mounting on Biden.

“To be the president running for reelection, you are, in fact, the standard bearer of that party — and the bough had been breaking for days, crack by crack, now with roughly 40 elected members of Congress and the Democratic Party urging him to step aside,” she said.

Jen Psaki, who had been President Biden's press secretary, broke the news on MSNBC at 1:52 p.m.

“This is a significant breaking news development with the president announcing he is stepping back from the race," Psaki said. “There was very little indication from people close to him and many people in the campaign that this was what was about to happen, as much as there were reports of Democrats calling on him to do that.”

MSNBC’s coverage was joined by Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough.

Fox News Channel said it would present continuous coverage of Biden’s decision on Sunday. Fox's chief Washington Correspondent Mike Emanuel broad the news on air and was joined by Bret Baier, Brit Hume, Martha MacCallum, Bill Hemmer and Shannon Bream.

“This is a tectonic shift in politics, think about where we have been and in such a fast time to have changed now this nominee, stepping down," Baier said on Fox News. "It was only three weeks ago that there was that debate and at which point President Biden walked out and in the first few minutes, the world kind of gasped that was on stage after all the preparation that he did. The fallout from that I  don’t think ever really recovered and his effort to do interviews afterwards did not stop the bleeding as far as his political problems.“

Cable news rival CNN was airing a rerun of Fareed Zakaria GPS when the news broke, and at 1:46 p.m. and it took about 10 minutes to report the breaking news, according to the Daily Beast.

NBC News announced that anchor Lester Holt will sit down with President Joe Biden in an exclusive interview on Monday in Austin, Texas.

The NBC interview comes as Biden fights to keep his candidacy alive following a devastating performance in a debate with Donald Trump that was conducted by CNN.

An unedited tape of the full interview will air during primetime, starting at 9 p.m. Monday evening on NBC. 

The special will also stream on NBC News Now.

Highlights from the interview will appear during NBC Nightly News earlier in the evening.

After the debate, Biden attempted to start a comeback with an interview on ABC with George Stephanopoulos.

The interview will also coincide with the opening of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

As you may have heard, there’s a solar eclipse going on Monday, April 8, and the news networks are all over the uncommon event. The so-called path of totality will run from northern Mexico, through Texas and across the Midwest, including Indianapolis and Cleveland, then on to Maine. The last total solar eclipse in the U.S. happened in 2017, and the next one, after April 8, is scheduled for 2044. 

The Weather Channel has Stephanie Abrams kicking things off that day at 6 a.m., reporting from Fredericksburg, Texas on America’s Morning Headquarters. Heather Zons hosts the interactive live chat called Follow the Shadow. 

Weather Channel will have meteorologists up and down the swath of the country experiencing the total eclipse, including Alex Wilson in Dallas, Jim Cantore in Indianapolis and Felicia Combs in Russellville, Arkansas. 

ABC News and Nat Geo will team up on the two-hour live special Eclipse Across America, on at 2 p.m. Monday on a range of networks, including ABC, Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, Disney Plus and Hulu. David Muir and Linsey Davis anchor, with assists from Nat Geo talent Mariana van Zeller, Cristina Mittermeier and Babak Tafreshi, among others. Reports come from Del Rio, Texas, Carbondale, Illinois and Indianapolis, along with other sites.

On CBS, it’s Total Eclipse of the Heartland, on CBS and CBS News Streaming April 8 from 2 to 3:30 ET. CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil anchor from Indianapolis. Janet Shamlian will be in Kerrville, Texas, Omar Villafranca in Dallas and Dave Malkoff in Cleveland, along with other correspondents in other locales.  

The CBS stations are in on it too, including KYW Philadelphia chief meteorologist Bill Kelly on the set in Philly, WCBS New York anchor Kristine Johnson in Niagara Falls and WBZ Boston reporter Mike Sullivan in Burlington. 

Over at NBC, Lester Holt anchors Total Eclipse 2024 starting at 2 p.m. from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He’ll anchor NBC Nightly News that evening from Indianapolis too. 

Among the Today crew, Al Roker will be in Dallas, and Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin and other talent at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Correspondents will be up and down the eclipse path, including Jesse Kirsch in Cleveland, Kate Snow in Houlton, Maine and Maura Barrett in Bloomington, Indiana.

Correspondent Katy Tur anchors coverage of the eclipse beginning at 2 p.m. on MSNBC. 

NBC’s owned stations will cover the event on their FAST channels starting at noon ET. KXAS-KXTX Dallas-Fort Worth produces the live-streaming special. 

Fox Weather, for its part, offers America’s Total Eclipse that day, with meteorologists and correspondents in a bunch of cities, including Stephen Morgan in Dallas, Kendall Smith in Indianapolis and Janice Dean in Little Rock. 

CNN’s coverage will include Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanchez on CNN News Central from 1-4 p.m. ET, and CNN en Español anchor Rey Rodriguez reporting from Mazatlán, Mexico. Meteorologists Chad Myers, Allison Chinchar and Elisa Raffa will provide eclipse context from the studio. 

NewsNation has Brian Entin, senior national correspondent, anchoring with NewsNation Now talent Nichole Berlie and Connell McShane from Chicago at 1 to 4:30 p.m. ET. Correspondent Brooke Shafer will report from the Indianapolis Speedway and Caitlyn Becker from Niagara Falls, among other correspondents in various locales. 

NBC News executives will meet March 26 and decide on the fate of Ronna McDaniel at the network, according to published reports. McDaniel, former Republican National Committee chair, was hired by NBC News March 22, with the news organization aiming to feature voices addressing the issues from both sides of the political spectrum. 

NBC News talent has blasted the move on the air. Chuck Todd, former Meet the Press moderator, did so on that program March 24, and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski opened Morning Joe March 25 on MSNBC with a criticism of McDaniel and her hiring, labeling her an “anti-democracy election denier.”

Nicolle Wallace, host of Deadline: White House on MSNBC, stated on air that election deniers can spread misinformation “as one of us, as badge-carrying employees of NBC News, as paid contributors to our sacred airwaves.”

Rachel Maddow addressed the matter on The Rachel Maddow Show March 25. “I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable and I hope they will reconsider that decision,” she said. 

NBC News did not comment. 

McDaniel stepped down as RNC chair March 8, pushed out after Donald Trump expressed his desire for new committee leadership.

Her deal with NBC News is worth around $300,000, according to the NY Times. 

McDaniel was on Meet the Press March 24, booked to appear before she was hired at NBC News. Moderator Kristen Welker asked her if President Joe Biden had legitimately won the 2020 election. McDaniel responded, “Fair and square, he won.”

Todd, NBC News chief political analyst, later appeared on a panel on the show, and said NBC News journalists are “uncomfortable” working alongside McDaniel. 

A day later, Brzezinski told Morning Joe viewers that McDaniel will not be a guest on the show as long as she’s paid by NBC. 

Kristen Dahlgren, NBC News correspondent, has announced her departure from NBC News to start the nonprofit Pink Eraser Project, which will focus on breast-cancer vaccines. She joined NBC News in 2006. 

A breast cancer survivor, Dahlgren announced her departure on Today January 30. “I'm excited about the prospect of my own body fighting off a cancer recurrence, or a day my little girl could be protected from ever going down this road,” she said on the morning show. “So when I realized there might be a way that I could actually help the process, I was all in.”

Dahlgren sat with Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Craig Melvin on Today. 

She added: “If I've learned anything in 30 years as a journalist, one person really can change the world, but this will go much quicker if everyone joins us … I’m going to be dedicating my life to this. It means that I am leaving what has been a dream job, but it's just too important for me not to work on this. And you see that incredible group of doctors we already have assembled and it's only growing, guys.”

“It's your last report for NBC. It is not your last appearance,” Guthrie said. “You are an amazing colleague and friend, and supporter to all of us.”

Mike Calia has been named managing editor of NBC News’s Business & Economy unit. He comes from CNBC, where he was a senior editor at CNBC Digital. He will oversee editorial direction for the Business & Economy unit, with an emphasis on the state of the economy, the American consumer, the jobs market and what NBC News calls “pocketbook issues.”

Calia spent close to seven years at CNBC. He’s now based at 30 Rock in Manhattan. 

“Mike will be an incredible asset as we continue to build momentum between NBC News and CNBC in pursuing seamless and powerful partnerships, ambitious lines of reporting and elevated work across the broader News Group,” said Catherine Kim, senior VP, NBC News Editorial, in a memo to staff. 

While at CNBC Digital, Calia oversaw a team of editors and reporters covering media, transportation, retail, food and other industries. The team is known internally as “the Biz Team.”

Before that, he was senior editor for politics at CNBC Digital, managing coverage of the 2018 and 2020 elections, and as a breaking news editor. Previously, Calia spent more than eight years at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires as an editor and reporter. 

Paul Ryan has been named the executive producer of NBC newsmagazine Dateline. He had been senior producer and creative director of Dateline. The show, in season 32, is the longest-running series in NBC primetime history. 

Ryan joined NBC News in 2011. He is also the executive producer for NBCUniversal News Group’s annual Inspiring America special. Previously, he was the co-executive producer for the NBC series The Widower and Escape, and the senior producer for Dateline’s first original show for Peacock, The Last Day.  

Ryan began his television career in 1994 at Sports Illustrated Television, then moved to CBS News. He was senior broadcast producer at 48 Hours. 

Dateline is anchored by Lester Holt and features correspondents Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison and Dennis Murphy. 

Elizabeth Cole was named senior executive producer at Dateline late last year. 

Dateline, which airs as a one-hour strip in syndication, has been renewed for an eighth season by the NBC Owned Television Stations, Sean O’Boyle, executive vice president of syndication sales, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, said Thursday.

The true-crime focused newsmagazine also airs on the Tegna, Fox Television Stations, Gray Television, Cox Media Group, Scripps, Nexstar Media Group, Hearst TV, Sinclair, Sunbeam TV, Graham Media Group, Weigel Broadcasting, Block Communications and Hubbard Broadcasting station groups.

“Dateline in syndication is a sustained and proven ratings success, consistently placing among the top-rated programs in daytime with remarkable continued growth, making it a perfect station offering for the new realities of our business,” O’Boyle said in a statement. “Dateline’s compelling storytelling and high-quality, recognizable brand, continues to appeal to local news viewers and is the perfect program to attract top-tier advertisers.”

“Dateline delivers compelling, best-in-class content in the ever-popular true crime genre,” Therese Gamba, chief marketing officer and executive VP of acquired programming, NBCUniversal Local, said, also in a statement. “We are delighted to extend our partnership and to continue to bring ‘Dateline’ to audiences across our markets.”

Averaging 1.9 million daily viewers, Dateline in syndication has grown its audience 19% compared to last year, and ranks second among one-hour syndicated strips, according to NBCU.

NBCUniversal first introduced a repackaged version of primetime news magazine Dateline to the syndication market in 2017. This fall, CBS followed suit with a syndicated version of 48 Hours. Repackaging long-standing libraries and offering them to TV stations on an all-barter basis is a growing trend in syndication as TV stations face shrinking margins and less cash to spend on acquired programming. 

The series is in its 32nd season on NBC. It is anchored by Lester Holt and features correspondents Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison and Dennis Murphy. It also streams on Peacock’s Dateline 24/7 channel, which can also be seen on Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi, Pluto TV, Freevee, Local Now, Xfinity, the Amazon Fire News App, TuneIn and Xumo. It also produces podcasts, including Murder in Apartment 12. David Corvo is senior executive producer and Liz Cole is executive producer. 

Brian Cheung has been named business and data correspondent at NBC News. He joined NBC News as a reporter in the business and technology unit in September 2022. He will report across all NBC News platforms. 

Since joining NBC News, “Brian has been ubiquitous across all platforms breaking down all kinds of data — from the latest inflation numbers to the jobs report to retail sales — and translating what it all means for our audience and the overall health of the economy,” said Catherine Kim, NBC News senior VP of editorial. “Brian led coverage of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and the regional banking crisis earlier this year, was steadfast on the stakes of the UAW strike, and captured the pulse of Americans across small towns and cities.”

Cheung began his career as an intern on the assignment desk at CNBC. He was a reporter and anchor at Yahoo! Finance for four years before moving to NBC News. 

“In 2024, we look forward to more of his crucial reporting on whether the economy is working for most Americans, as Wall Street, inflation and family budgets will surely be front and center for voters as we enter a presidential election year,” Kim said. 

Adrienne Broaddus has joined NBC News as a correspondent. She will be based in Chicago. She comes from CNN, where she was a correspondent, and covered the pandemic and mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Oxford, Michigan; and Highland Park, Illinois. She also extensively covered policing in America, according to David Verdi, executive VP of global newsgathering, NBC News, including the trials of former Minnesota Police officers Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter.

Broaddus joined CNN in 2020. Before that, she spent almost seven years as anchor and reporter at KARE Minneapolis. Previously, she worked at WISH Indianapolis and WNEM Saginaw. 

She graduated from Michigan State with a degree in journalism. She started her work in television at HOM-TV, a government access channel in Okemos, Michigan. 

Broaddus is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. 

Chloe Melas joins NBC News on August 21 as an entertainment correspondent. She’ll detail the intersection of entertainment, business and culture, across all NBC News platforms. She will be based in New York. 

Melas comes from CNN, where she has been an entertainment reporter. 

Catherine Kim, senior VP of NBC News Editorial, shared the hiring with staff. “ If you know Chloe by reputation, you know she is a relentless, ambitious, prolific reporter who expands the definition of entertainment reporting,” she said. 

Kim noted how Melas scored major scoops at CNN, while also pulling off challenging investigative work and celebrity interviews. 

Melas hosted CNN’s 2021 New Year’s Eve special with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. She also helped host CNN’s We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert telecast in 2021. 

Before joining CNN in 2016, she launched entertainment site HollywoodLife. She was also an anchor at VH1. Her career began with an earlier stint at CNN, as a news assistant. 

“It has truly been a masterclass in journalism,” Melas said on Instagram. “For the last 7 years I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the greatest journalists in the world. Many of them have become family.”

Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, digs in on the Wagner paramilitary organization, which was behind a mutiny in Russia in recent weeks, and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, when On Assignment with Richard Engel airs on MSNBC and streams on Peacock Friday, July 7. The hour-long episode is entitled Revolt from Within: The Rise of Wagner. 

On Assignment with Richard Engel is in its sixth season.  

NBC News said Engel has been tracking Prigozhin and his mercenaries around the globe for almost a decade. Engel reports on the group’s operations from the battlefields in Ukraine and Syria, to Africa and the United States. He also examines how Prigozhin went from being one of Russia President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies to a public adversary after he launched a mutiny threatening Putin’s authority and power June 23. 

Engel joined NBC News in 2003. His books include A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest, War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq and And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East. 

NBC News anchor Lester Holt will serve as the headliner fortThe National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications’s 37th annual NAMIC Conference this September in New York. 

Holt, host of NBC’s Nightly News with Lester Holt and Dateline NBC, most recently earned the 2022 Edward R. Murrow Award in the Newscast category. The NAMIC Conference, which takes place September 19-20, looks to promote a shared industry responsibility for diversity, equity, access and inclusion, with attendees learning about best practices, building valuable networks and gaining actionable solutions to advance DEAI within their companies, according to the organization. 

“We are honored to have Lester Holt as the headliner for the 37th annual NAMIC Conference," NAMIC president and CEO A. Shuanise Washington said in a statement. “His remarkable career and dedication to diverse storytelling align perfectly with NAMIC’s mission. We are excited to hear his insights and perspective as we continue to build a more inclusive industry together.”

The NAMIC Conference is part of the cable industry’s September 18-20 Diversity Week festivities in New York, which also includes the WICT Leadership Conference and the Walter Kaitz Foundation Fundraising Dinner.

NBC Nightly News is turning 75 this week. Meghan Rafferty is executive producer on the program, the only female E.P. on the three evening broadcast newscasts. 

Rafferty joined NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt as senior producer in 2017 and has been executive producer since 2021. Before coming on board at NBC News, she spent a decade at CNN, where she produced The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Amanpour. She had interned on NBC’s Weekend Today back in 2006. 

Rafferty described her role on Nightly News as a “dream job.” 

“I love being able to inform so many Americans every evening and really help communicate the most important stories of the day to them,” she said. 

NBC Nightly News won the Edward R. Murrow Award for best newscast in 2022. Through June 4 in 2022-2023 season-to-date ratings, per Nielsen, ABC’s World News Tonight has averaged 8,201,000 total viewers, NBC Nightly News has 6,856,000 and CBS Evening News has averaged 4,974,000. In the 25-54 demo, ABC has 1,318,000, NBC has 1,113,000 and CBS 782,000.

For their part, CBS and ABC have also spent 75 years in the evening news game.

Rafferty spoke with B+C about NBC Nightly News’s milestone, how the newscast has evolved over the years, and how Lester Holt sets it apart. 

An edited transcript follows. 

BC: When you were an intern on Weekend Today, did you foresee a day when you would be exec producer on one of NBC’s newscasts?

Meghan Rafferty: Weekend Today was my first broadcast experience, and I loved every minute of it. It changed the course of my career. I definitely feel like that started the wheels turning on wanting to work in visual journalism. I just really loved the way that what we do communicates to viewers. That changed my life. The executive producers and the senior team at the time, I definitely dreamed of someday being able to follow in their footsteps.

BC: How has Nightly News evolved since you came on board six years ago? 

MR: What I learned during the pandemic especially is just to lean into that depth that viewers are craving, try to answer those questions that people have, and really capitalize on original reporting, which is what NBC News is doing widely. It’s a great time to be the EP, because there's so much to partner on with investigations, and there's just so much reporting happening. That's really what I want. 

What I strive every night to do is give viewers those most urgent breaking stories at the top of the show, but then also something that they might not expect, that they might not know, with our in-depth features in the later bits. That's what I love, weaving that all together every night. Working with those teams on those stories for months and months — it's a really cool experience.

BC: What does Nightly News offer that its competitors maybe don't do?

MR: It's that depth. We try to remember that people are getting information all day long. And so I really try to make sure that we have something that's distinct, that has original reporting, that has something exclusive, that has an interview that you won't see anywhere else. That's what I'm trying to give viewers, something that every night if they tune into Nightly, they're getting something different than what they've seen all day.

BC: With so many news sources outside of the evening newscasts available to consumers, do you wrestle with how to find and offer something different?

MR: What I try to do is just really focus on what we're able to give viewers because of the strength of our news organization. We have so many reporters, we have so much content being driven out of NBC News, and that's such a strength. There have always been a lot of [news] papers and sources and websites. But I think that what makes us so special is that we drive a lot of that journalism internally. And so when you see NBC News, you're getting something that is well reported. You're getting something different. You're getting a trusted brand, but you're also getting something that we're doing ourselves. 

It's something to be very proud of.

BC: How did the pandemic change the way the broadcast comes together? 

MR: I really try to center myself in thinking about what viewers across the country want–what they need to know, what they're curious about. That curiosity during the pandemic was just such a moment because I realized, we always know what we do is so important. Our job is to inform and to hold people accountable. That mission became so clear during the pandemic, and I just really try to make the time for that depth, make the time to answer those questions that people have, and remember that we have a very important mission and job to do, as far as informing people.

The pandemic also made us better collaborators–it broke down a lot of walls for us. It made us closer together, with our teams in different places, but it also made us realize the importance of working together and the strength of it. We all came closer together as an organization, and I think it's only made us stronger.

BC: Tell me about the stress of calling the shots on a live newscast. Does that get easier over time?

MR: I've worked in news for such a long time and I really just enjoy it. I love those moments up until the broadcast. I love covering breaking news. I love the months-long investigations. 

I don't get stressed, I just get very focused. 

BC: Any changes coming up, whether it's a new segment, new talent, anything new and different for Nightly News?

MR: What we just did, we're gonna keep doing, which I really love. We sent Lester to Florida two weeks ago. We planned a two-day, in-depth trip there to capitalize on getting Lester not just at the forefront of a hurricane or a disaster, but really return to a story. We want to keep doing that. 

We went to Fort Myers Beach. We spent months getting it together–an in-depth piece on insurance struggles that people were having on the ground there. And we got such an outpouring for doing it. We partnered with our affiliates on the ground, and we had the reporters contribute to the program.

We want to keep doing that, especially within the U.S. Going to our viewers and meeting them where they are, and telling the stories that resonate with viewers all around the country–it takes Lester out of the studio and gets him on the road, in the field as the reporter. Obviously we'll send him to all the breaking news that we do already, but he just really shines in the field. 

It’s a great way of going and seeing it for ourselves. It was very powerful doing that in Fort Myers Beach, seeing the rubble piled up, the houses that are condemned, eight months [after Hurricane Ian]. We're excited to do more of those trips.

BC: Tell me something about Lester that viewers may not know.

MR: He loves music and the depth of his knowledge about music, whether it's rock or jazz, it's just really astounding. We recently had John Fogerty on the show. He came into 30 Rock and played a jam with Lester. He actually got the play on stage with Fogerty at Radio City. It's just really cool to see that side of Lester because he is such a great musician and really appreciates other great musicians. Seeing the passion that Lester has for the arts is really a lot of fun. 

BC: How would you describe Lester performing on stage? Similar to how he is on the set?

MR: He is calm, cool and collected. I love working with him because he's so smart and he cares so much about what we do and how we do it. 

Chuck Todd will step down as Meet the Press moderator after nine years in the role. Kristen Welker, NBC News chief White House correspondent, will take over the position. Todd made the announcement at the end of the program June 4, saying many in television “overstay their welcome,” while he’d rather depart “a little bit too soon than stay a tad too long.”

Todd called it a family decision, citing friends who had let their work consume them. He will continue as NBC News chief political analyst. 

Welker started at NBC as an intern on Today in 1997. She is co-anchor of Saturday Today in addition to her chief White House correspondent role. She joined Saturday Today in 2020 and began covering the White House for NBC News in December 2011. 

Welker moderated the final presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in October 2020 at Belmont University in Nashville. 

A Harvard grad, she previously worked at WCAU Philadelphia as a reporter and anchor. Before that, Welker worked at WLNE Providence, Rhode Island, and KRCR Redding, California. 

Todd did not say when he will sign off from Meet the Press, though published reports said that would happen in the fall. An inquiry to NBC News was not addressed at deadline. 

Todd took on the job in 2014, succeeding David Gregory. 

Allen Media Group said Local Now, its free streaming service featuring local news and entertainment, is launching three free, ad-supported streaming TV channels from NBC News.

The three channels are NBC News Now, Today All Day and Dateline 24/7.

“Adding these three excellent NBC News FAST channels is another milestone achievement for Allen Media Group as we continue expanding the Local Now channel content,” said Byron Allen, founder/chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group. “NBC is an outstanding brand in both news and entertainment, so this collaboration is an obvious choice for Allen Media Group to give our viewers the ability to stream this amazing content for free, anytime on Local Now.”

Also: Roku Channel Expands NBCU News Lineup

Local Now offers 450 free streaming channels, including a Local Now channel for every market in the country. Users can also find 18,500 movies, TV shows and documentaries.

The app is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xfinity, Vizio, Samsung, Android and iOS devices. ■

NBCUniversal announced that it hired The New York Times deputy managing editor Rebecca Blumenstein as president, editorial at NBC News, a new position in a revamped management structure at the company’s news division.

Blumenstein replaces Noah Oppenheim, who has been president of NBC News since 2017. He will be developing and producing projects in partnership with NBCU. 

As part of the new structure, Libby Leist, who has overseen the Today show, has been promoted to executive VP, Today and Lifestyle, and Janelle Rodriguez, who led the launch of NBC’s streaming news channels, was named executive VP, NBC News Now.

Blumenstein, Leist and Rodriguez report to Cesar Conde, chairman of the NBCU News Group.

“The appointments of Rebecca, Libby and Janelle provide a powerful foundation for the News Group as it continues to grow its leadership position,” Conde said. “NBC News, together with CNBC and MSNBC and through our many programs and platforms, reaches more Americans than any other news organization. The extraordinary accomplishments of Rebecca, Libby and Janelle and their visions will keep us on the path of continued success, delivering the highest quality journalism in the United States and around the world.”

Before joining the Times in 2017, Blumenstein was with The Wall Street Journal.

“The news landscape is rapidly evolving, with mediums converging at a rate our industry has never seen. I look forward to building on the deep journalistic foundation at NBC News to help NBC News achieve its ambitions,” Blumenstein said. “I have loved every minute of working at The Times and learned so much working with many of the best journalists in the world.”

During Oppenheim's tenure running NBC News, Ronan Farrow investigated the sexual assault allegations against Hollywood independent film mogul Harvey Weinstein but did not broadcast them. Farrow took the story to The New Yorker which published the scoop at the same time as The New York Times broke its version of the award-winning story.

Oppenheim has been an author, screenwriter and producer. He is developing a limited series at Netflix starring Robert DeNiro tentatively titled Zero Day.

“We are grateful for Noah’s leadership during such an important time, both for us and our profession, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role,” Conde said. ■

Bernard Kalb, a correspondent at CBS News and NBC News, and later moderator of Reliable Sources on CNN, died January 8. He lived to 100 and died in North Bethesda, Maryland.

Kalb was born in Manhattan in 1922 and spent two years in the army after graduating from the City College of New York, which included working on a newspaper in Alaska.

He joined The New York Times in 1946, where his roles included covering the United Nations and corresponding from Southeast Asia. Kalb stayed until 1962, when he moved to CBS News, and was based in Hong Kong. He covered the Vietnam War and, after returning to the U.S., anchored CBS Morning News from Washington starting in 1970. He accompanied President Nixon to China in 1972, reported the New York Times, as the U.S. and China built up their relationship.

Kalb went on to be NBC’s State Department correspondent starting in 1980, when both he and brother Marvin shifted from CBS News to NBC News. Kalb worked at NBC until President Ronald Reagan hired him to be assistant secretary of state for public affairs in late 1984. He started in that role in 1985.

Kalb resigned in October 1986 in protest, claiming he was asked to distribute disinformation related to Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi.

In 1992, Kalb was moderator of CNN program Reliable Sources, which he did for six years, said the Times.

Kalb’s brother Marvin survives him, as does his wife, Phyllis. ■

Revolt will look at Black communities battling systematic water pollution in the network's first investigative special, The Real Thirst Trap, debuting December 22.

The Revolt Black News special, hosted by Emmy award-winning journalist Mara Campo, investigates the detrimental impacts that polluted water has on Black communities, and gives a voice to typically unheard individuals from Flint, New Orleans and Watts that are battling pollutants, toxic landfills and water systems under threat, said the network.

Campo, who has previously worked for ABC News, NBC News and TV One, will also serve as global news anchor of Revolt Black News. She will also also host Revolt's flagship news series Revolt Black News Weekly and act as the news division's managing editor.

"By announcing Mara joining Revolt, as we air our first investigative special, we are sending a deliberate signal to the world that we are building a best-in-class news division that will center the needs of Black people from across the diaspora and boldly tell the stories the rest of media chooses to ignore," Revolt CEO Detavio Samuels said in a statement. “I couldn’t be more proud to have yet another Black woman helping to lead the charge & contribute to that mission."

Also: Multicultural TV’s Power Players: Bringing Diversity to TV Screens Everywhere

Added Revolt President of News, Specials & Documentary Monique Chenault: "We are thrilled to welcome Mara Campo as Global News Anchor and Managing Editor of Revolt Black News. I’m confident Mara's in-depth reporting style, dedication to the public citizenry, and vast experience in covering the most pressing issues will further propel our news division as a critical vessel for sharing stories and assessing realities that impact Black people in America and throughout the African diaspora in an insightful and solution-minded way." ■

It doesn't look like former president Donald Trump will be getting much broadcast primetime coverage for his "big announcement" Tuesday night (November 15), which is widely expected to be his decision to enter the 2024 presidential race.

That announcement is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET from Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort.
ABC News was not commenting, but according to someone familiar with its plans those did not include live coverage of the announcement that would preempt any of the second hour of Bachelor in Paradise.

CBS News was not commenting either, but again, according to someone familiar with its coverage plans, it would not be preempting any primetime programming (FBI: International airs at 9-10 p.m.) for Trump.

Also: C-SPAN To Cover Trump Announcement Live

CBS will cover the announcement on its CBS News Streaming Network, including streaming a portion of the announcement live.

Trump, no stranger to self-promotion, has said his announcement "will be remembered in history forever."

On CBS, that announcement will get no more than a notation on the broadcast network in the form of a crawl, according to the source.

An NBC News spokesperson was not available to comment on that network's plans at press time. ■

Latino voters still prefer Democrats over Republicans to control Congress, and by a wide margin — 54% to 33% — but that is down significantly over the last few polls conducted by NBC News and co-owned Telemundo.

Another troubling sign for Democrats is that the top issue facing the country according to those Latino voters is the cost of living, while the poll found that a majority of Latino voters — 54% — disapprove of the way the top Democrat — President Joe Biden — is handling the economy, with 38% saying they thought Republicans in general did a better job of handling the economy than Democrats.

While Latino voters preferred Democratic control by 21 percentage points, that was down from 26 points in 2020, 34 points in 2018 and 38 points in 2016.

Following the economy, the issues most important to Latino voters polled were "threats to democracy" and jobs.

Latino voters gave Democrats higher marks than Republicans promoting tolerance and respect, handling the abortion issue and having the right approach to gun laws. ■

The Roku Channel said it added 14 linear channels to its lineup, including four from NBCUniversal Local and six from the E.W. Scripps Co.

The Roku Channel also launched Roku Channel Westers, an owned and operated channel with movies and series including Apache Junction, The Westerner and The Rebel.

Also: Roku Turns the Screws on Its FAST Channel Partners

The Roku Channel added NBC Local news channels from San Diego, Boston and the San Francisco Bay area. It also added NBC’s LX News. The Roku Channel added NBC News Channels from eight markets including New York and Los Angeles in June.

“We are excited to introduce LX News and three new NBC local news channels to The Roku Channel’s audiences following a very successful launch of our channels earlier this summer,” said Meredith McGinn, executive VP of diginets and original production at NBCUniversal Local. “If you’re looking to get the latest local news from NBC stations or want to go beyond the headlines, our NBC local news channels and LX News will deliver this and more.”

The Scripps channels added to the Roku Channels include Bounce XL, Court TV, Grit Xtra, Ion, Ion Mystery and Ion Plus.

Roku Channels also added BBC Kids, a Cheaters channel and Cine EstrellaTV.

“We’re thrilled to continue rolling out new channels to our Live TV Guide and continue expanding in entertainment categories we know our audiences enjoy and value. From local news channels to your favorite drama and crime series, to additional Spanish-language content, we are committed to providing it all for our viewers,” said Ashley Hovey, head of The Roku Channel AVOD.  ■

The broadcast networks are loading up for another programming blitz on Monday (June 13) as the Jan. 6 special committee holds the second of what will be a series of hearings on the Capitol insurrection.

The special committee investigating the attack has made it clear from the day-one hearing Thursday (June 9) that it holds Donald Trump responsible for both fanning the flames of the the violence and not doing enough -- anything? -- to stop it.

According to various reports, among the witnesses for the June 13 hearing is former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, who was the face of Fox's call of Arizona for Joe Biden during the 2020 election.

CBS News said Sunday (June 12) that Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell will host a special report starting at 10 a.m. on Monday (June 13), both on the broadcast network and CBS News's streaming platform.

Also: Most, Not All, Fox Stations To Air Capitol Insurrection Congressional Hearing

Joining O'Donnell will be John Dickerson, Robert Costa, Nancy Cordes, Major Garrett, Nikole Killion and Scott McFarlane.

Over on NBC, Lester Holt will anchor an NBC News Special Report, also starting at 10 a.m. on the broadcast network and streaming a half-hour earlier at 9:30 on NBC News Now.

Contributing to the special report will be Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson, Chief White House Correspondent Kristen Walker, senior congressional correspondent Garrett Haake, Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, and legal analyst Danny Cevallos.

PBS NewsHour will also start its special coverage at 10 a.m. on Monday, hosted by managing editor Judy Woodruff with reports from chief correspondent Amna Nawaz, Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins and chief Washington correspondent Geoff Bennett (from the White House). ■

Dateline, a nationally syndicated version of NBC’s long-running newsmagazine, has been sold for a sixth season to TV stations covering more than 90% of the U.S., said Sean O’Boyle, executive vice president of syndication sales, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios on Wednesday.   

Dateline currently airs as a one-hour weekday strip on TV stations, and several NBC-owned television stations in the top markets recently picked up the show for next season. Dateline’s sixth-season syndication lineup includes WNBC New York, WMAQ Chicago, WCAU Philadelphia, KRON San Francisco, KXAS Dallas-Fort Worth, WRC-TV Washington DC, KPNX Phoenix, WTVJ Miami-Fort Lauderdale, KUSA Denver, KXTV Sacramento, KGW Portland, WRTV Indianapolis and WDRB Louisville. These stations and more represent such station groups as Tegna, Fox, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television, Nexstar Media Group, Graham Media Group, Gray Television, Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps, Sunbeam, Weigel Television, Block Communications, Hubbard and more.

“Dateline continues to be best-in-class programming in the ever-popular ‘True Crime’ genre,“ O’Boyle said in a statement. “Its successful run in syndication started in 2017, when it entered the marketplace as a utility program. Now heading into its sixth season, Dateline has grown to be a top performer for local stations, which are increasingly airing it in important time periods on leading news stations.”

“We’re excited that this opportunity will allow fans and new viewers to watch Dateline on some of the top stations across the country. We’re grateful that these stations — new partners and some we’ve had a relationship with for years — are choosing to include Dateline as part of their successful programming,” said David Corvo, senior executive producer of Dateline, and Liz Cole, executive producer of Dateline and president of NBC News Studios. ■ 

It can be hard enough to digest the news of the world, be it COVID-19 or the war in Ukraine, when a news consumer wakes up in the morning. It is a heckuva lot harder to process it all and deliver it to morning TV viewers as they sip coffee and get the kids off to school. 

Speaking just before Russia invaded Ukraine, Hoda Kotb discussed witnessing world history from the front row.  “It’s been horrifying and saddening and awe-inspiring at the same time,” she said. “This is a moment in history like no other. Sometimes you just can’t believe this is the part of history you’re witnessing in your lifetime.”

The Today co-anchor is precisely where she wants to be at 7 a.m. each weekday, even if she never quite let herself dream about that scenario. “I get to do a job that was so far out of my mind, it wasn’t even in the dream,” Kotb said. 

Also: Welcome to the 30th Anniversary of the ‘B+C’ Hall of Fame

Kotb grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia, her parents coming to America from Egypt to attend college. She described “a kind of idyllic childhood” in a neighborhood where everyone looked out for each other. She played high school basketball, getting by on grit. “I played with heart and I loved it,” Kotb said. 

Took to TV Journalism

Her parents were “newsies,” Kotb said, always with the news on TV, and that was a factor in her studying broadcast journalism at Virginia Tech. 

“I fell in love with storytelling,” Kotb said. “I covered city council meetings, and it was, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing!’”

When it came time to find a job in local TV, Kotb drove her mother’s car all over Virginia, getting a no in each market, but also coming away with a suggestion about someone in a smaller market who might be looking for an entry-level reporter. “I never left a station without another one to go to,” Kotb said. 

She finally interviewed in Greenville, Mississippi. The WXVT news director was promoted from sport director the day before, and hired the woman he called “Hilda” after watching her “horrible” tape, she said. 

“He said, ‘We’ll pay you nothing and you’ll work all the time,’ ” she said. “I have never been more grateful in my life for a job.”

Kotb moved on to WQAD Moline, Illinois; then WINK Fort Myers, Florida; then WWL New Orleans. Kotb adored that city and job, and NBC called about a position at Dateline NBC in 1998. Neal Shapiro, CEO of The WNET Group, was a Dateline executive producer. He met Kotb in New Orleans. Some talent pops on camera more so than in person, he said. Kotb popped on camera — and was even warmer in person. 

“Delightful, charming, curious,” he said. “She had a lot of great qualities.”

Kotb started at Dateline, and when Shapiro was promoted to NBC News president in 2001, he put her on a range of NBC News programs. “Everywhere she went, Hoda impressed,” he said. “People saw in her what I saw.”

Kotb joined Kathie Lee Gifford as the co-host of Today’s fourth hour
in 2008, and moved up to Today co-anchor in 2018. 

Co-anchor and fellow 2022 Hall of Famer Savannah Guthrie said Kotb brings “intense smarts” and a lot of warmth. “She’s so funny and loving and warm, which everyone knows from the fourth hour, but may have missed the fact that she’s an incredibly smart and astute journalist,” she said. “She’s also a great writer and great communicator.”

Empathy Lessons

Being the child of immigrants has helped Kotb as a journalist. Her friends growing up would visit their grandmother in a neighboring state, while she hopped on a plane to Egypt to do so. “It made the world small,” she said. “You realize, people here are like us, and people there are like us. People all around are human beings.”

Kotb is up at 3:15 each weekday. To unwind, she plays with her kids, who are 5 and 3. She enjoys strumming the guitar — “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is a favorite — walking through Central Park and shooting hoops, never leaving the playground on a missed shot. 

The news can feel a bit overwhelming, but Kotb anticipates things eventually getting back to a more sedate state. 

“Nothing is a hurricane 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she said. “Hurricanes come and go. We’ll hopefully get to a point where we get back to life, and we get back to other stories that lead our newscast.” ■

Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor on Today, marks 10 years in the role this summer. Guthrie has had an eventful decade, interviewing presidents, corporate CEOs and global newsmakers on a regular basis. 

It’s a busy time in news to say the least, and Guthrie feels the Today team has never been stronger. “I feel the best I’ve ever felt, the most comfortable I’ve ever felt in this job,” she said. “I’m just grateful every day to be able to do it.”

Also: Welcome to the 30th Anniversary of the ‘B+C’ Hall of Fame

The pandemic has, of course, been a front-page story for two years, and the war in Ukraine gives news gatherers another colossus to tackle. That’s just the pace of the game in 2022. “The news cycle just seems to get shorter and shorter, to the point where I don’t know that there is even such a thing as a news cycle anymore,” said Guthrie, also NBC News chief legal correspondent. “We used to talk when I was starting out about the 24-hour news cycle. Now it’s like the 24-second
news cycle.”

Starting in Stations 

Guthrie was born in Australia and raised in Tucson. She studied journalism at the University of Arizona, and learned about television while working part-time at local PBS station KUAT Tucson. Her roles included grip, camera operator and director, and she got on-air, hosting a fundraising slot one Sunday morning. 

Guthrie parlayed that into a weekend anchor/weekday reporter job in Butte, Montana (DMA No. 185, if you’re scoring at home). Ten days after she arrived, the staff was brought in for an emergency meeting. The station, they were told, was shutting down. 

“I’d spent all my money to get there,” Guthrie said. “It was crushing. My career was over before it began.”

Guthrie was able to land at a station in Columbia, Missouri, then another in Tucson, before she began law school at Georgetown. 

“I was done with TV,” said Guthrie. “Or so I thought.”

She sought freelance work at the D.C. stations, and got a call from NBC-owned WRC about an assignment. 

Practicing law at the time, Guthrie was about to become a law clerk for a federal judge, but had an “epiphany,” she said, about getting into network news. She told the judge she would not be taking the job. “He was flummoxed,” she said. “Nobody does that.”

Guthrie continued freelancing in local TV, then landed a job at Court TV. Based in New York, she became a legal analyst at various networks, including at NBC’s Today, and NBC offered her a position in 2007. “To be walking the halls of 30 Rock and meeting these people was beyond my wildest dreams,” Guthrie said. 

She became NBC News’s White House correspondent late in 2008, and landed on Today in June 2011, becoming co-anchor in 2012.

Noah Oppenheim, NBC News president, said Today “sets the tone” for NBC News each morning. “No one is smarter, no one works harder or does more preparation, and no one is more adept on their feet, in the moment, when doing live interviews,” he said of Guthrie. Oppenheim also mentioned Guthrie’s “exceptionally high emotional intelligence,” a vital asset for interviews. 

“She is the full package,” he added. 

Co-anchor and fellow Hall of Fame inductee Hoda Kotb sings a similar tune, calling Guthrie “incredibly well-prepared” each morning. “There’s not a detail she misses and there’s not an interview she shirks away from,” Kotb added. 

Guthrie, who is 50, has children who are 7 and 5. With the kids in mind, she authored the 2017 children’s book Princesses Wear Pants with Allison Oppenheim, wife of Noah. 

Waking up well before dawn is challenging, but Guthrie said being part of the Today team, all of whom get up early, work their butts off and make a compelling show each day, gives her inspiration. “How fun is it to be in a joint enterprise, doing something you think has purpose and meaning, that’s fun and creative and exciting?” she said. 

The show offers viewers the right mix of hard news and hope, said Guthrie, and the can-do attitude on both sides of the camera is “contagious.”

“How could you not feel like you want to pour everything you have into it,” she said, “when everyone is pouring everything they have into it?” ■

NBC New York News and NBC Los Angeles News went live on Peacock March 17 as the streamer continues to add local news channels. Peacock launched NBC Chicago, NBC Philadelphia, NBC Boston and NBC South Florida in January. 

The free channels offer Peacock subscribers round-the-clock access to comprehensive local news coverage, including simulcasts of the linear stations. The coverage includes weather, sports, investigative reporting and lifestyle content.

The channels are not geo-targeted, so users in any part of the country can access a certain station’s content on Peacock. 

WMAQ Chicago, WCAU Philadelphia, WBTS Boston and WTVJ Miami premiered local channels on Peacock January 20, with WNBC New York and KNBC Los Angeles joining them March 17.

The NBCU station group also includes outlets in San Diego, the Bay Area, Hartford, Washington, DC and Dallas/Fort Worth. ■

Jesse Kirsch has joined NBC News as a weekend correspondent and will be based in Cleveland. He comes from WLS Chicago, where he was hired as the station’s first digital reporter, then moved on to be a general assignment reporter. 

Stories Kirsch covered at WLS include a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio and social justice protests in Chicago following the death of George Floyd. 

ABC owns WLS Chicago. 

Kirsch was an early host on ABC’s Localish, a digital and network show. He attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

His role at NBC includes reporting across all NBC News and MSNBC platforms. 

“His features have reached millions of viewers, including his exclusive look last year at the Obama Portraits exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, his coverage of Northwestern’s first-ever Big Ten title game and his reporting on the 2017 ‘Great American Eclipse’,” said David Verdi, executive VP of global newsgathering, NBC News. ■

NBC News is focused on rainforest destruction and its perils the week starting Dec. 5, with Today, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, NBCNews.com and NBC News Now all contributing to the Rescuing the Rainforest series. 

Rescuing the Rainforest will feature investigative reporting on the fate of rainforests and how that impacts communities, economies and the environment around the world. 

For close to a year, NBC News’ investigative team, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network, has dug deep on deforestation, including why one of the world’s most common fabrics isn’t as environmentally friendly as previously thought, how the rise of electric cars like Tesla is increasing the demand for nickel mining that is encroaching on a Philippines rainforest, how Puerto Rico is providing hope for reforestation, and the debate over a new policy that major companies are using to appear carbon neutral.

On Nightly News Dec. 5, correspondent Jacob Ward will report on how the rise of electric cars is endangering one of the last frontiers in the Philippines. The investigation will reveal how a mine that supplies nickel for electric vehicle batteries is on the verge of a major expansion into a pristine rainforest. 

MSNBC correspondent Josh Lederman will investigate corporations that are claiming to be carbon neutral by paying landowners not to cut down forests instead of cutting their own fossil fuel use. The report asks, is it a climate solution or a greenwashing scheme? That’s on MSNBC Sunday, Dec. 5. 

On Nightly News Dec. 8, NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk investigates how viscose rayon fabric is damaging the world’s rainforests even though it’s been promoted as being environmentally friendly. 

On Today Dec. 8, NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff will visit Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest to report on how the area’s reforestation can provide hope for rainforests around the world to recover. ■ 

Veteran NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who had successfully rehabilitated his career with a popular 11 p.m. nightly news show on MSNBC, will leave the news organization he has served the last 28 years by the end of 2021.

”This is the end of a chapter and the beginning of another,“ Williams said in a statement. ”There are many things I want to do, and I'll pop up again somewhere.”

The vagueness of that statement accompanies the fact that subscription streaming service CNN Plus is currently ramping up and looking for talent. But any connection is mere speculation at this point. 

Williams has hosted the popular nightly news and political discussion show The 11th Hour on MSNBC for the last five years. His contract with NBC News is set to expire at the end of the year. 

CNN reported in August that Williams wants to move off the late-night hour. Also notable: cable news ratings are way down year over year across the board. And one more notable thing to mention: NBC News just dug deep — $30 million a year deep  — to renew MSNBC on-air star Rachel Maddow.

Williams was MSNBC‘s top anchor when the news channel launched back in 1996, and he ultimately assumed the prestige role of anchoring NBC Nightly News. However, his tenure was cut short by accusations that he‘d exaggerated stories about himself in interviews. 

Talia Parkinson-Jones is the new executive producer of NBC News’ Today with Hoda & Jenna, said Libby Leist, senior vice president of Today and NBC News. She officially starts on Monday, Oct. 18.

Parkinson-Jones replaces Joanne LaMarca, who departed the program in August after steering it through the pandemic, format changes and both of the show's hosts welcoming new children into their families. 

A daytime veteran, Parkinson-Jones most recently served as consulting producer on Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk, featuring Jada Pinkett-Smith, her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris and her daughter, Willow Smith, talking about trending topics of the day as well as their personal lives. 

In 2019, Parkinson-Jones worked with Bill Geddie and Tamron Hall to launch ABC’s syndicated daytime talker, Tamron Hall. She departed that show in March 2020. 

Also Read: Quiana Burns Replaces Candi Carter on 'Tamron Hall'

She spent a decade working on Debmar-Mercury’s The Wendy Williams Show, rising to co-executive producer. She also developed and executive produced BET’s one-hour red-carpet series, Wendy’s Style Squad, and served as casting director for Discovery's game show, Cash Cab.

Parkinson-Jones graduated from Syracuse University with a B.S. in Public Communications. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons.

Additionally, Today veteran Meredith Reis has been promoted to senior broadcast producer of Hoda & Jenna, effective immediately. Reis began her career as a researcher for Today and has worked on all four hours of the program, covering breaking news, features and live events. For the past two years, she has served as senior producer for the 10 a.m. hour. Reis reports to Parkinson-Jones, who reports to Leist.

Jeopardy! is adding TV doctors Mehmet Oz and Sanjay Gupta and TV journalists CNN’s Anderson Cooper and NBC’s Savannah Guthrie to its roster of guest hosts, Executive Producer Mike Richards said Tuesday. 

As a part of each celebrity’s appearances a donation will be made to the charity of their choice by the Sony Pictures Television-produced game show that will match the cumulative winnings of the contests that compete during the weeks they guest host.

“We look forward to each guest host bringing their unique abilities to the show and to our contestants winning a lot of money that we can match for charity,” Richards said. 

Also Read: Syndication Ratings: 'Jeopardy!' Stays on Top with Ken Jennings at the Wheel

The first two weeks of Jeopardy! without originating host Alex Trebek, who died Nov. 8 of pancreatic cancer, were hosted by Greatest (Player) of All Time and consulting producer Ken Jennings, with both weeks with Jennings at the podium leading Jeopardy! to the top of syndication's household ratings chart.

Richards is currently doing hosting duties. Next up to bat are Katie Couric, Aaron Rodgers, Bill Whitaker and Mayim Bialik 

Also Read: Jeopardy! Welcomes Katie Couric, Aaron Rodgers, Bill Whitaker, Mayim Bialik as Guest Hosts

Oz hosts Sony Pictures Television’s The Dr. Oz Show and is an attending physician at NY Presbyterian-Columbia Medical Center where he still performs heart surgery. He authors a syndicated newspaper column in 175 markets internationally and has written eight New York Times best-selling books, including his most recent, Food Can Fix It.

CNN anchor Cooper is a frequent competitor in Jeopardy!’s Power Players Tournament. Besides anchoring Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN and Anderson Cooper Full Circle on CNN’s digital properties, he is a regular correspondent for CBS’ Sunday night news magazine 60 Minutes and a New York Times best-selling author.

Also Read: Remembering 'Jeopardy!' Host Alex Trebek

Guthrie co-anchors NBC’s Today and also serves as NBC News’ chief legal correspondent. She’s also a New York Times best-selling author for her book Princesses Wear Pants and the sequel Princesses Save the World.

Gupta is CNN’s chief medical correspondent as well as an associate professor of neurosurgery at Emory University and the associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Gupta also contributes to 60 Minutes and serves as an executive producer for HBO’s documentary unit. His fourth book, Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age, is a New York Times best-seller.

Additional guest hosts and the charities for which they are hosting will be announced later.

NBC News has opened its new Washington, DC bureau. Located near Capitol Hill, the bureau hosted Meet the Press with Chuck Todd Jan. 24. Covering six floors and 80,000 square feet, with seven studios, the bureau will host nine programs, including Meet the Press, Weekend Today and MSNBC’s The ReidOut with Joy Reid. 

“This is an outstanding new home for our Washington-based journalism and broadcasting,” said Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCU News Group. “Bringing together our teams across NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and Noticias Telemundo best positions us to cover every storyline coming out of DC. I’m looking forward to the day when we can all safely collaborate and work together in person in these new spaces. Until then, we will continue to adapt and innovate, producing stellar reporting and programming with the majority of our workforce operating remotely.” 

The bureau is home base for special programming for Today and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, NBC News special reports, and MSNBC special coverage for events such as inaugurations and State of the Union addresses. More than 400 employees are based there. 

NBC News had been at 4001 Nebraska Avenue in Washington for the past 60 years. WRC Washington will continue to broadcast from there. 

Ten-foot floor-to-ceiling windows circle the main first-floor studio of the new facility. The words “Accuracy,” “Courage,” “Freedom” and “Truth,” and quotes from former presidents, scholars and authors, are etched into columns throughout the studio and newsroom spaces. 

“For more than seventy years, Meet the Press has been the place where presidents, policy makers, foreign leaders and those in power have come to speak directly to American viewers,” said Chuck Todd. “From every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy to international leaders like Fidel Castro and Benjamin Netanyahu to Sen. John McCain and President-elect Joe Biden’s more than 50 appearances each, these historic moments and interviews have all happened on Meet the Press. This year, we will continue to be the gold standard of Sunday public affairs programming with the same sensibilities and mission, only now from a 21st century studio with the latest technologies and broadcast capabilities.” 

Tom Brokaw has announced his retirement from NBC News, wrapping up a stunning 55 years with the network. He anchored NBC Nightly News from 1983 to 2004 and has been a senior correspondent more recently.

“During one of the most complex and consequential eras in American history, a new generation of NBC News journalists, producers and technicians is providing America with timely, insightful and critically important information, 24/7. I could not be more proud of them,” said Brokaw. 

Brokaw spent his entire journalism career with NBC News, starting in Los Angeles. In 1973 he moved to Washington to be White House correspondent. In 1976 he became co-host of Today and moved to anchor of NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw in 1983. 

Also Read: Networks All In as Election Day Turned Into Election Days

He filled in as moderator of Meet the Press after Tim Russert’s death in 2008. 

Brokaw’s books include The Greatest Generation, Voices of the Sixties and The Time of Our Lives: A Conversation About America. 

NBC News said he will continue to author books, and will spend time with his wife, Meredith, three daughters and grandchildren.

As the historic events unfolded on Capitol Hill during the afternoon and evening of Jan. 6, people around the world tuned into news networks and social media to follow what was happening. The TV networks also harnessed social platforms such as YouTube to share breaking news, videos and more as the Capitol was thrown into chaos.

According to social video analytics company Tubular Labs, as of this writing there have been over 207 million views on YouTube videos related to the U.S. Capitol crisis and its aftermath, with 5 million engagements. Four out of the top 10 videos by views were live streams to YouTube, including the No. 1 clip: NBC News’ “Live: Congress Resumes Electoral Vote Count After Rioters Cleared From Capitol” with 14.9 million views (the video is no longer available) — making it NBC News’ 11th most-watched YouTube video ever. 

Also Read: Networks Hustle to Cover Capitol Coup

CBS News also had a top-five most-viewed video, “Live coverage: Protesters swarm Capitol, abruptly halting electoral vote count,” which has racked up nearly 3.9 million views. The popularity of these live YouTube streams illustrates how social video can help networks reach households that may not be linear TV subscribers, but who still want access to breaking news. In this respect, platforms like YouTube aren’t necessarily a threat to traditional networks, but rather a way to supplement their content and reach viewers beyond the live TV audience. 

In the days following Jan. 6, networks continued to leverage YouTube to share updates, such as CNN’s “More arrests made after riots at the US Capitol,” which is the No. 7 most-viewed clip so far related to the U.S. Capitol events, with nearly 3 million views, nearly all of which occurred in the first three days after it was uploaded on Jan. 9. 

MSNBC also drew a large number of viewers for its Capitol Hill coverage on YouTube. Its video “Must-See New Video Shows Capitol Riot Was Way Worse Than We Thought” has generated 11.4 million views in the five days its been live, making it the network’s third most-watched YouTube clip ever. 

It’s worth noting the absence of Fox News from the ranking of top videos related to the Capitol Hill events. The network’s most-watched YouTube video related to the events, “US Capitol on lockdown as protests threaten security,” has 979K views.

Looking at Tubular Audience Ratings for the three major cable news networks provides an additional perspective on how they’ve performed on YouTube recently. In November, CNN won for unique viewers (34 million) and 30-second views (173.7 million). But when examining total minutes watched, Fox News ranked highest with 1 billion. While MSNBC had the fewest total minutes watched (632.3 million), its audience consumed more individual videos on average — 7.3, vs. CNN’s 5 and Fox News’ 4.8 — and it had the highest count of minutes watched per viewer (36.7).

With all the madness surrounding 2020, it was only fitting that Election Day would end without a winner decided. The network news-gatherers knew they were in for a long night, and in terms of drama, anxiety and, yes, length, Election Day did not disappoint. 

“This has been unlike any election we’ve covered,” said Norah O’Donnell, CBS Evening News anchor, after CBS coverage began at 7 p.m. ET. 

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The networks were happy to show off their new bells and whistles, be it augmented reality or a new wrinkle to the touch-screen Magic Wall. “Let’s show off our toys here!” said Chuck Todd, NBC News political director, as he clicked to display early, absentee and Election Day voters. 

NBC’s screen hollered “Road to 270.” Hallie Jackson, NBC’s chief White House correspondent, said, “There’s a lot of eyeballs on Pennsylvania tonight.”

Her counterpart at ABC, Jonathan Karl, also cited the Keystone State early in the coverage. “Pennsylvania, be prepared to be patient,” he said. 

On the ABC set, Chris Christie said the early signs “look very good for the president’s prospects in Florida.”

On CNN moments later, John King, chief national correspondent, was focused on Florida as he tweaked the Magic Wall, drilling down on the Sunshine State’s individual counties. “Welcome to the roller coaster that is Florida,” he said.

Steve Kornacki, NBC News national political correspondent, worked the
Magic Wall on MSNBC, diving deep on Ohio counties to see how voting compared to four years ago. 

Todd had other toys to show off on NBC, clicking to display 2016, 2012 and 2008 vote tallies in the Florida counties. “This is the toy I love the best,”
he said.

At 8 p.m. the Fox broadcast network signed on, with anchors Trace Gallagher and Sandra Smith on the desk. On Fox News Channel, Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace noted President Trump was ahead in the popular vote around 8:30. “In the end, some people feel more comfortable with Donald Trump as their leader,” he said. 

Speaking with Broadcasting+Cable before Election Day, CBS News president Susan Zirinsky put the 2020 contest in context. “The election really will determine a very critical period in our nation’s history,” she said. “The impact of what is happening in this election — everything is at stake.

O’Donnell mentioned the “huge, unprecedented turnout” by voters. Added John Dickerson, CBS political analyst, “Democracy is working really, really well.” 

At 10 p.m., CNN teased a Key Race Alert, only to say that several states, including Iowa, Nevada, Utah and Montana, were too early to call.

At 10:30, John King said “there are no surprises on the map thus far.” He cracked, “If Joe Biden can rebuild the Blue Wall, forgive me, Donald Trump will pay for it.”

Ten minutes later, O’Donnell suggested viewers brew a pot of coffee, as the grand conclusion was not coming soon. Ed O’Keefe, CBS News political correspondent, agreed. “Election Days,” he quipped. 

Just before 11 p.m. ET, CNN had Biden at 192 electoral votes and Trump at 108. “It’s easy for a Democrat to get to 192,” said King, but not so much to 270. 

As the night ended it seemed clear it would take days for either candidate to get to 270, at least officially. “We’re just getting started,” King said. “We are just getting started."

NBC won the Tuesday ratings race in viewers 18-49, as the networks hustled to cover Election Night. NBC posted a 1.7 in that demo, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 7 share. That topped ABC’s 1.5/6. Fox had a 1.2/5 and CBS a 1.1/5.

ABC had the most total viewers at 5.9 million. NBC had 5.7 million, CBS had 4.4 million and Fox tallied 3.6 million. 

NBC started Decision 2020 at 7 p.m., as did ABC’s Your Voice/Your Vote and CBS’s CBS News 2020: Election Night. Fox’s Democracy 2020 began at 8 p.m. Each network’s coverage extended beyond primetime. 

NBC had NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, Meet the Press moderator and NBC News political director Chuck Todd and chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, among others. 

On ABC, chief anchor George Stephanopoulos was on with World News Tonight anchor David Muir, ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis and a correspondents crew that includes chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl.  

On CBS it was Norah O’Donnell, anchor of CBS Evening  News; Gayle King, co-host of CBS This Morning; Margaret Brennan, Face the Nation moderator; John Dickerson, senior political analyst, and correspondents Ed O’Keefe and Major Garrett, among others. 

Fox had Fox News anchors Trace Gallagher and Sandra Smith, along with chief political anchor and Special Report’s Bret Baier, The Story anchor and executive editor Martha MacCallum, Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace and senior political analyst Brit Hume. 

Univision rated a 0.7/3 and Telemundo a 0.5/2. Univision had Destino 2020 Presenta: La Gran Noche across prime. Telemundo had Decision 2020: Trump O Biden. 

The CW got a 0.1/1 with Penn & Teller: Fool Us reruns. 

Much like everything else that has transpired in 2020, election-night coverage promises to test news organizations as they have never been tested before. 

“I’ve been part of election teams since the 1980s,” said David Bohrman, executive producer of CBS News’s 2020 election-night coverage. “I’ve run election coverage at CNN and NBC, and now here at CBS, and this is the most complicated election I’ve ever been part of.” 

RELATED: Streaming to the White House

Marc Burstein, senior executive producer of ABC News Special Events, agreed, citing the difficulties of producing a major election-night special in the middle of a major pandemic: “We are having to prepare for anything and everything. It could be the longest night or it may not be. No one knows and we have to prepare for every possible contingency.” (NBC News, the other Big Three broadcast network news arm, did not provide executives to be interviewed.)

Or, as PBS NewsHour executive producer Sara Just observed: “It’s like trying to tie your shoes while riding a bicycle. We are confident we have a good plan for keeping everyone safe, but it is challenging. This is going to be a night like none other.” 

Much of this reflects a 2020 news cycle that has produced a slew of once-in-a-lifetime stories and tragedies. “I’ve been at CNN for almost 30 years and this is the most intense news environment I’ve ever seen,” Sam Feist, senior VP and Washington bureau chief at CNN, said during B+C’s News Technology Summit last month. “We are covering an election, maybe the most anticipated election in our lifetime, along with a pandemic and a national reckoning over race.”

RELATED: The New Math of Election Coverage

“When we look back on 2020 we will think, ‘Wow, that was the most extraordinary news year ever,’ and we did it with an arm and a half tied behind our back,” Feist added.

These national calamities and controversies have also spiked viewer interest in the results and significantly raised the competitive stakes for news organizations. 

“There are more eyes on this election than we’ve had in our lifetimes,” Cherie Grzech, VP of politics and the Washington bureau at Fox News, said. 

The Most Unusual Election Night

The heightened scrutiny comes as news organizations are grappling with what might on Nov. 3 be the most unusual election night in television history.  

Unlike other presidential elections, where networks covered voters casting ballots and reported the results the same day, early voting this year is hitting record levels. Mail-in voting is also expected to hit record levels, and many votes might not be counted until after Nov. 3. That, in turn, could delay results and make the process of reporting and calling races a much more complex and uncertain process. (See “The New Math of Election Coverage,” page 12.)

Technology and production plans have also been upended by a pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 people. In addition to having many people work from home, networks are using more studios and control rooms to spread out employees and are revising coverage plans by recruiting additional legal experts to explain potential voting irregularities and rethinking how to deploy journalists. Many typical election-night gatherings are likely to be canceled and travel restrictions will make it more difficult to get boots on the ground. 

One thing that hasn’t changed is election night’s importance. All the major commercial TV news organizations are investing millions of dollars in new sets and technology to stand out from the competition and attract new viewers. 

“Election night, for us and for all the news networks, is our Super Bowl,” Fox News senior VP of news and politics Alan Komissaroff said. “It is our biggest night and we are determined to put our best foot forward. There isn’t a nook and cranny of the building that we are not using. We’ll be using every piece of technology we have been using in the past and a few new ones as well.”

As in earlier years, many networks will broadcast their coverage from new sets, studios or facilities that feature the glitziest graphics and massive, high-resolution, floor-to-ceiling walls and screens for data and results. 

Coverage will include big touch screens where correspondents and anchors take deep dives into results and augmented reality systems. Some networks, such as Fox News, will even be debuting virtual reality systems. 

The challenges facing news organizations this year may also improve the quality of coverage. For example, COVID-19 restrictions limiting in-studio guests will result in using a much wider array of sources and voices from remote locations, network executives said. “This has been kind of a breakthrough moment this year in terms of adding more people to the conversation,” Fox News’s Grzech said. 

Another positive development is the rapid expansion of streaming services. Their growing availability means viewers will be able to easily access a much wider array of stories and coverage, both on digital media and on broadcast networks, where TV anchors can draw on the expertise of digital teams. (See “Streaming to the White House,” page 11.)

The difficulties of election coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic have also forced news organizations to integrate their operations more tightly with local stations, digital outlets and even radio organizations rather than fly reporters into key battleground states. This reporting from seasoned local journalists could provide national audiences with a better understanding of the results in those locales. 

CBS, for one, will add extensive coverage to CBSN by streaming 10 local feeds, while Newsy will draw on coverage from parent company Scripps’s 60 TV stations. 

“We have a team of four or five people who will be monitoring the local stations and we’ll be able to carry their feeds at key times,” said Matt Simon, supervising producer for PM content at Newsy, who is also overseeing election-night initiatives.

RELATED: Stations, Networks Eye Boom in Political Ad Spending

PBS NewsHour will also be drawing on the expertise of local reporters. “One of the great advantages of public broadcasting is that there are over 350 stations across the country that we work with,” Just said. “They know their communities best, and throughout our programming we will be turning to a lot of those reporters for their expertise.”

Built for Primetime

The complexity of predicting races and explaining voting trends is likely to make networks even more cautious and thoughtful when providing context or caveats in their reporting. 

“Transparency is the watchword for us,” ABC’s Burstein said. He said coverage will explain what is known as well as what isn’t known, so viewers understand why certain information or vote totals aren’t available. “The decision desk [which calls races] is always careful and conservative, but this year we will be more conservative than ever.” 

For its election-night coverage, ABC News will use a renovated studio that has been expanded to 5,500 square feet. It features 28 new video screens with about 35 million pixels, including a high-resolution video floor. 

A variety of features that enables moving video walls and screens will provide more flexibility to tell the story from different angles. Enhanced capabilities for augmented reality and other graphics are also part of the mix. 

“We will have tools to tell the story in ways we’ve never had before,” Zach Toback, VP of news and nonfiction production and studio operations at ABC News, said. “There is video everywhere, there is video on the ceilings, all across the walls, that creates a very immersive space. It is the largest renovation that we’ve done in any facility since the early 1980s.”

PBS NewsHour will be upping its production values with new LED walls that allow anchors and reporters to better display graphics and analyze results, VP of operations Matt Speiser said.

Univision will show off a new set that improves its graphics capabilities and helps it follow COVID-19 restrictions. “We are trying to simulate as much as possible the expansiveness of the coverage we’ve had in the past and do an even better job this year,” said Lourdes Torres, senior VP of political coverage and special projects for the Spanish-language broadcaster. “We have a huge newsroom and the idea is to expand the set into the newsroom and basically have all the elements — video walls, touch screens — embedded in the newsroom.” 

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many Univision staffers have been working from home, with only about 25% of the typical newsroom staff on-site. For election night, though, Univision will be bringing more people into the building to supplement the remote workers. 

To keep staff safe, Univision will place staff in additional control rooms and spaces to maintain social distancing, a strategy many other networks and news organizations are adopting. “We will have training, special cleaning teams, security to remind people about masks to keep people safe,” Torres said. “It is really a pretty elaborate plan.”

Safety Must Come First

Since the start of the pandemic, the Associated Press has decentralized video production operations and set up systems for people to work at home, AP deputy managing editor for visual and digital journalism Derl McCrudden said. But for the final days of election coverage, AP will be bringing a small video production crew back into the New York and London hubs. 

That will allow AP to provide live election coverage for customers with the curated AP Direct channel and four other live channels that provide outlets with HD-quality video. “Many broadcasters air these feeds live around the world,” McCrudden said. 

ABC will be spreading out staff over four control rooms and three studios. “We are being very careful with our COVID protocols,” Katie den Daas, executive producer at the streaming service ABC News Live, said. “We will have more control rooms than we’ve ever had, so we can be socially distant. We have added HEPA filters to our control rooms. Everyone wears a mask and some people in the control rooms will be getting the N95 masks of the sort used by medical professionals,” she said.

Said CBS’s Bohrman: “Everyone involved is being tested every day, everyone in the studio, everyone in the control room.” Network coverage will originate in a new high tech set at the ViacomCBS headquarters in Times Square, a first for the news division on election night. “The studio is zoned off to separate people and to make sure there is not any movement between the zones,” Bohrman said. “This is the biggest team effort in broadcast news, but we are finding ways to do it in a COVID-safe way.”

All of these efforts, executives said, will help to keep staff members safe as they report on the most unusual election of our lifetimes. Bohrman stressed the importance of overcoming obstacles and getting the story right — both for the networks and for the country. 

“We and all the broadcast networks know that we need to help restore the faith in the electoral system,” he said. “It has been put under a lot of doubt by a lot of people and we need to be open and above board and clear as to the numbers to provide viewers with information they can trust.”

“This is our night,” den Daas at ABC News Live said. “That night might drag on for a while, but that’s OK, because this is what we do. This is why we got into journalism: To make sure we are here when Americans need someone to bring them the big story.” 

ABC will host a town hall with Joe Biden, former vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee, Oct. 15. George Stephanopoulos, chief anchor at ABC News, will moderate. The event happens in Philadelphia during primetime. 

President Trump and Biden were scheduled to debate Oct. 15 in Miami, but Trump’s COVID-19 issues appear to have cancelled the event. The Commission on Presidential Debates proposed a remote debate that night, but Trump dismissed the idea as “ridiculous.”

ABC News senior executive producer Marc Burstein is the executive producer of the town hall. 

NBC News hosted a primetime Biden town hall Oct. 5. 

The Meet the Press Film Festival goes down Oct. 15-22. The fourth Meet the Press festival, it is part of the American Film Institute’s AFI Fest and will be a virtual event. The Meet the Press festival “showcases the best in issue-based documentary shorts, bringing together filmmakers, subjects, audiences and NBC News correspondents in an all-virtual setting for unique, thought-provoking discussions,” said NBC News. 

Chuck Todd hosts Meet the Press on NBC. 

Meet the Press will feature 19 films, followed by conversations moderated by NBC News correspondents Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Hallie Jackson, Kasie Hunt, Jo Ling Kent, Cynthia McFadden and Morgan Radford. The films are divided into seven programs: When the News Becomes the News, Native Stories, Black in America, MeToo and Beyond, Justice For All, Culture Clash and All Politics Are Local. 

Films include When The News Hits Home: A Year Inside The Capital Gazette, directed by Moises Saman and about the 2018 shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper; The Lost Astronaut, directed by Ben Proudfoot, and about an African-American astronaut; and My Brother's Keeper, directed by Laurence Topham and about the friendship between former Guantánamo detainee, Mohamedou Ould Salahi, and his American prison guard, Steve Wood.

Meagan Fitzgerald has joined NBC News in Chicago as a correspondent. She will report on all platforms for NBC News as well as MSNBC.

Fitzgerald comes from NBC-owned WRC-TV Washington, where she has been weekend news co-anchor.

Her resume includes KUSA-TV Denver, where she covered the mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012 and the legalization of marijuana. She began her TV news career at KTVE-TV Monroe, Louisiana.

Fitzgerald is a graduate of Howard University in Washington.

Over the last six months, a perfect storm has swept across the news business, radically changing or even obliterating the traditional playbook for election coverage. 

The pandemic has killed off campaign rallies, reduced the conventions to a somber virtual shell of the usual festivities and is threatening to rewrite the script for election-night coverage, as news organizations prepare to handle mail-in ballots and voter suppression problems that may prolong their coverage into what one news executive referred to as “election results month.”  

Not surprisingly, the 20 news executives interviewed for this report are calling the 2020 election “unprecedented,” “like no other,” “unimaginable” and “completely bizarre.”

See Also: Racial Reckoning | Think Local: Broadcast and Stream Everywhere

“Usually in the latter part of the election year, the election is the story, sometimes the only major story,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief. “But this year that is not the case. The election is competing with COVID and our national reckoning on race and policing.”

The magnitude of these problems — the largest racial-justice protests in half a century, an economic collapse that sent gross domestic product into a 33% tailspin in the second quarter and a pandemic that has killed nearly 160,000 people — is also prompting news executives to make radical changes in their election and political coverage.

Most notably, that has put issues front and center in the election cycle, as opposed to the usual horse race coverage of stump speeches, rallies and campaign strategies.

“The issues we are dealing with in many ways are bigger than the election,” said Martha MacCallum, who is co-anchoring Fox News Channel’s election coverage and anchors The Story. “People have a strong sense of the gravity of this moment and they are looking to President Trump and former Vice President Biden to provide leadership and answers on those issues.”

Similar sentiments can be found at most other news organizations. “In 2016, there was a big focus on the horse race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and the back-and-forth of that popularity and unpopularity contest,” Justin Dial, senior executive producer at the ABC News Live streaming service, said. “But in 2020, viewers are more interested in the issues. You have to get beyond the horse race and really dig into the issues.”

Significant as it may be, news organizations are not solely focused on the election. “We are devoting the vast majority of our journalism resources to the pandemic, the fragile economy and the racial-justice movement that are top of mind with voters,” Newsy VP of news and programming Christina Hartman said. “In that sense, this will be the first election where the majority of our election coverage is not explicitly about the election.”

Home Alone

Covering these once-in-a-lifetime issues has created enormous challenges. About 95% of the staff at NBC News and MSNBC is working from home, the network said. “It’s changed the way we produce and broadcast our news programs and report from the campaign trail,” Rashida Jones, senior VP of NBC News and MSNBC, said.

But many news executives also stress that the work-from-home environment has provided them with a welcome opportunity to rethink the way they tell stories. “If you look back four years ago, I think the mistake our industry made was to focus too much on the personalities and the tweets,” E.W. Scripps VP of news Sean McLaughlin said. “What people missed was that there were a lot of unhappy people.

“This time around, we are doing a better job of listening,” he said. “We are tackling it differently and packaging it differently. And I like that, because it is not about responding to a convention or a press conference or following the candidate on campaign trails where we listen to the same canned speeches. It is better journalism and better for the American election cycle.”

One major example of how news organizations are taking a different tack on election coverage can be found in the coverage of the racial justice issues and in the role that Hispanics are likely to play in the election. (See sidebar, page 10.) “The projection is that about 32 million Latinos will be eligible to vote this time,” Univision VP of politics Lourdes Torres said.

That is making their experiences a center­piece not only for Spanish-language 

networks, but all news outlets. “We saw a huge increase in turnout among Latinos in 2018 in key states,” Torres said. “In 2020, how they engage with the candidates will be very interesting and important to the election.”

Younger viewers want those vital social issues covered in-depth. “In some sense, this is the election we’ve been working towards at Vice for a long time,” Susie Banikarim, executive VP and global head of news­gathering at Vice News, said. “Vice has been deeply embedded in issues like racial justice for a long time. We have a young audience that doesn’t come to us for the traditional horse-race coverage or pundits shouting at each other. So we really feel like we’re leaning into things that we’ve been covering for a long time.”

Local First

With the pandemic imposing travel restrictions on coverage, having local reporters or ties to TV stations is another key trend. (See sidebar, page 11.) “We now have 10 local versions of CBSN and those have been augmenting what we are already doing in terms of going deeper into local politics,” Christy Tanner, executive VP and general manager of CBS News Digital, said.

Having that extra coverage in swing states “has been a real differentiator” for the streaming service, she said.

“When we built our political team two years ago, we set it up to have reporters all around the country,” Associated Press Washington bureau chief Julie Pace said. “We wanted to make certain that we had people who were living in a lot of these states that were going to decide the election and that our coverage wasn’t just reflecting the inside-the-Beltway chatter. That has been a huge advantage now that you can’t have people flying around.”

Similarly, ABC News and NBC News have launched initiatives focusing on issues and politics in swing states. “Once the campaigning stopped because of the virus, we directed the teams embedded with the candidates to cover issues, starting with the economic issues from the shutdown and then racial disparity,” said Wendy Fisher, VP, newsgathering, ABC News. “Now, the same group of people are focusing on the big issues in certain battleground states.”

Chuck Todd, moderator of Meet the Press and NBC News political director, explained in an email that in November 2019, “we launched a year-long project focusing on five bellwether counties [in Wisconsin,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Florida] across the country to better understand what’s happening on a hyper-local level … to better understand what we think will define what happens in November.”

Unconventional Conventions

Viewers will also see major changes in this year’s convention coverage. Unlike 2016, when the razzle dazzle of the conventions was over by July, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions will be mostly virtual when they finally happen later this month. All of the major news organizations have dramatically cut back their presence in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Milwaukee, the RNC and DNC cities, respectively.

ABC News will anchor the conventions from New York, using two control rooms so social-distancing rules can be followed, senior executive producer for special events Marc Burstein said. A reduced presence in the convention cities doesn’t make the event less important, he stressed. 

“You hear the argument that no news
is made at the conventions so why bother with them,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to that at all. With the issues the country is facing right now with the coronavirus and the economic decline and the racial unrest, the conventions will provide voters with plans for how each party plans to tackle these problems and what the country is going to look like under a Democratic president or a Republican president.”

Others stress a similar point. CBS News political director Caitlin Conant noted that in recent months, “major issues regarding the pandemic, the economy and widespread protests have overshadowed some political issues.” As a result, CBS political reporters have been spending more time on those issues, producing such content as the “COVID Chronicles” series of reports.

“The conventions are going to be a big moment for the campaigns,” she said. “It will let the candidates basically reintroduce themselves to America and bring the focus back to politics.”

Conant and others also stressed that the revamped conventions offer news organizations an opportunity to rethink how they cover the issues that matter to voters. “It opens up a different thought process of how you approach the convention,” explained Fox News VP of politics and the Washington, D.C., bureau Cherie Grzech. “It means you can bring in players from every state virtually, rather than having everyone in one location, so it gives us a lot more options to get more experts and guests involved in the coverage.” 

Digital All-Stars

This year’s election coverage will also highlight the maturity and central importance of streaming and digital media. ABC News, for one, is planning one program for both linear TV and live streaming on the ABC News Live app for the conventions. “It won’t be like it was eight years ago, where only some people are on the network and there is another cast of characters on the digital live stream,” Burstein said. “We haven’t decided what will be streamed and what will be on the TV network, but it will be one show and we’ll have what I call our ‘A’ team on the digital live stream.”

More fundamentally, the renewed emphasis on issues will dovetail with the fact that streaming apps like CBSN, Newsy, Vice, NBC News, and ABC News Live have long focused on fact-based reporting of issues, investigative journalism and long-form documentaries. “This election year is going to be like no other we’ve ever seen, with people desperate for straightforward reporting and unbiased news and information,” noted Dial at ABC News Live. Since January 2020, it has been attracting about 20 million monthly viewers, up 142% according to ABC, with over 4.5 million hours streamed each week.

In addition to their long-standing focus on issues, executives at the major streaming outlets also stressed that their digital origins help in adapting to the pandemic-related restrictions on travel and reporting. “We were already interviewing people over Zoom and we already had very flexible operations that have helped us when we were first faced with the restrictions produced by the pandemic,” said Tanner at CBS News Digital

Election Month? 

Such flexibility will be important on election night, which may not follow any traditional script for analyzing the results. “We are working very hard right now to prepare ourselves so we’re up to speed on all the scenarios, both legal and logistical, that could occur in terms of voting rights, voter suppression and the vote counting,” CBS News’s Conant said.

Pointing to a recent podcast by chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett on some of the potential issues that might arise from voting during the pandemic, she added, “We need to be prepared if this is election week or election month.”

Even the look and feel of this election night coverage may be different, as the major networks and news organizations try to figure out how to stage election-night coverage during a pandemic. CNN’s Feist noted that they will be spreading talent over a wider area in additional studios and that their ongoing move towards new technical infrastructures has allowed them to have many people working from home who would normally be sitting in control rooms.

CNN has also significantly upgraded its data analytics for correspondent John King’s “Magic Wall” presentations and will be greatly expanding the amount of data it makes available online. This is notable because news organizations have been working overtime to figure out how to do a better job of handling data and avoiding some of the inaccurate predictions made during the 2016 election campaign.

“How you are describing the polls and what that means for the election is always a fairly complicated process,” noted Micah Cohen, managing editor, FiveThirtyEight. “In 2016, polls showed Clinton up by three or four points nationally, yet the race was being described by many journalists as a runaway for Clinton. That was a mistake, not on the polls but on the people interpreting the polls.”

This time around, Cohen sees the efforts by organizations like ABC News, which owns FiveThirtyEight, to beef up their data offerings and analytics as a welcome development. “I think people are doing better, but some aren’t and some are drawing the wrong conclusion that we can’t trust the polls at all,” Cohen said.

How well news organizations maintain their focus on these and other pressing issues remains to be seen. But most remain optimistic that the once-in-a-lifetime troubles could produce some of the industry’s best journalism in the 21st century.

“Anyone can follow a candidate spewing a stump speech,” said McLaughlin at Scripps. “Really digging in and following the money, and fact-checking and figuring out what is really going on and holding people accountable, is never easy, and these are not the easiest of circumstances to do that … But it’s never been more important. It’s our time
to shine.”

Widespread protests over police brutality and racial disparities have put civil rights and race relations among the top issues of the campaign, along with the economy and healthcare, according to a June 2020 CNN poll. The poll found 42% of Americans say race relations is “extremely important” in their vote for president.

That has prompted the kind of extensive coverage of racial issues not seen since the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and has accelerated a longstanding push to make newsrooms more diverse.

ABC News, for example, in 2019 hired senior VP, integrated content strategy Marie Nelson to better engage multicultural audiences with all the ABC News shows and platforms, and in January 2020 it launched a “Race & Culture” reporting initiative. “As part of that effort we’ve recruited senior-level producers to serve with each of the shows and platforms so that this isn’t a standalone effort, but something that is fully baked into the news division,” she said.

That has helped ABC News cover issues from more diverse perspectives and draw in more diverse audiences — its Juneteenth special on June 19 was the No. 1 program that day across all broadcast and cable channels with African-American viewers.

“For Latinos, this is not a new topic,” stressed Univision VP of politics Lourdes Torres. The network has long been covering both police brutality and abuses by immigration authorities. “There has been a huge and overwhelming identification among young Latinos with the protests … that raises very interesting questions about voter turnout,” she added.

Patsy Loris, senior VP, elections 2020 and special projects at Noticias Telemundo, stressed that “we have been covering racial and ethnic issues for years because discrimination and inequality have been front and center for the Latino community.”

Their response to these issues will also have an important role in the 2020 election. “For the first time, Latinos will be the largest voting ethnic block eligible to vote,” Loris said in an email. “Of the more than 246 million eligible voters, Latinos will account for a projected 13% of the electorate.”

To better serve an increasingly diverse population, NBC News chairman Cesar Conde sent a memo to staff earlier this summer committing to the goal of having a staff that is 50% women and 50% people of color. “It is … clear that the time for action is now,” he wrote, stressing the urgency of the effort.

Associated Press Washington bureau chief Julie Pace said the news service has had a race and ethnicity team “for quite some time” that has proven invaluable in covering the current protests, and in general political coverage. “They are very integrated in our political coverage, highlighting important issues and thinking through how we want to approach these stories,” she said.

NBC News and Noticias Telemundo will collaborate on reports to air on both networks, starting Aug. 6, said Noah Oppenheim, NBC News president and Luis Fernandez, president of Telemundo Network News. With a focus on issues affecting the Hispanic community in America, “NBC News x Noticias Telemundo Reports” launches Aug. 6 with a joint piece on how critical testing and tracing are when it comes to preventing outbreaks, through the lens of agriculture and the food supply chain in California. NBC News’ Gadi Schwartz and Noticias Telemundo’s Guad Venegas filed the report. 

It will air in English on NBC News platforms, including Nightly News with Lester Holt, various MSNBC shows, NBC News NOW and Today, as part of the network’s “Search for Solutions: The American Economy.” The correspondents will also produce a Spanish-language version to air on all Noticias Telemundo newscasts at 12:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 11:35 p.m. ET. Both pieces will also run on NBC News and Telemundo digital properties. 

“We’re thrilled to formally partner with our colleagues at Telemundo in this new and meaningful way, shining a light on stories and issues that affect a significant and rapidly-growing group of Americans, and reaching them in whichever language they consume news. Only at NBC is this kind of collaboration between two great news organizations possible,” said Oppenheim.

“This exciting new collaboration with NBC News will expand our coverage of the most important issues for Hispanics in both English and Spanish at a crucial time for our community,” said Fernandez. “With the country facing a global pandemic and heading into a historic election, it’s critical we provide our viewers with information that is reliable and factual, in both languages, and above all, that we Tell it Like It Is – las cosas como son.”

Next week, Morgan Radford and Nicole Suarez will file a report on the impact of remote learning on the millions of families who do not speak English as a first language, to appear on the same shows and platforms, also with English and Spanish-language versions. This report will be part of NBC News’ larger special series next week: “Coronavirus and the Classroom.”

Both part of NBCUniversal, NBC News and Telemundo said this is the first time the two divisions are collaborating in this way, having partnered in the past on presidential debates and other special events. Upcoming pieces in this series will include contributions from NBC News and Noticias Telemundo’s investigative teams, and more joint reporting efforts leading up to the 2020 elections.

It has been, by every conceivable measure, a perfect storm for news viewing. As the pandemic rages on, people are stuck at home and are desperate for timely information related to this enormous, horrifying story.

And news outlets, ranging from cable news networks to broadcast news divisions, are eager to provide viewers with the latest.

But what happens down the road? When the pandemic eventually dies down — it has to, right? — will viewers still be fervidly searching out news on TV? There’s no way news can sustain the lofty ratings of today, but many executives are hopeful to see a bump when the massive story of 2020 subsides. “We’ve exposed the audience to our programs and we’ve gotten before new audiences,” Kim Godwin, executive VP at CBS News, said. “I hope people who watch us now appreciate the journalistic integrity of our shows. I hope the audience gets used to watching us and likes our journalists.”

As the coronavirus curve has flattened across some parts of the country, news consumption has ticked downward from its high levels in the early days of the crisis. News programming was 19% of total TV time March 16-22, according to Nielsen, and dropped to 17.5% April 6-12. During March 16-22, subscription video-on-demand viewing on platforms such as Netflix was 15.1% of TV time, which ticked up to 15.4% April 6-12.

In an era when one hears about fake news on a daily basis, the TV news organizations are optimistic that the pandemic has drawn a clear line between established news outfits and the less credible ones. “There’s a reason viewers are turning to us now and trusting us at a terrible time,” ABC News VP of newsgathering Wendy Fisher said. “They’re not turning to us for fun. They’re turning to us because we provide information at this time of difficulty.”

Even before the pandemic, slow news days were increasingly uncommon in the modern media landscape. The post-pandemic days will surely be newsy too, which benefits the networks. For starters, America will decide on a new president inside of six months. TV news will be all over that, and so will viewers.

“This story does not seem like it is leaving, but we have long-range stories we’re staying focused on,” said Jay Wallace, president and executive editor of Fox News Media. “I do think people will be checking in with news for a long time to come.”

Network news executives are hopeful that the pandemic got viewers in the habit of seeking out timely information from their favorite networks, and perhaps strengthened the bond between a particular anchor or host and viewers. With viewers stuck at home, many can watch a daypart they don’t normally tune in for. 
“My expectation is that people will be more engaged and interested,” said Rashida Jones, senior VP at NBC News and MSNBC. “The work we do gives us the opportunity to showcase for people who haven’t watched us — show them what we do and what we are capable of doing. Hopefully, that brand can continue when we cover other stories.”

New News Demeanor

News may never look the same after the pandemic clears out. The coronavirus has been a deeply personal issue, with more than 1,000 deaths a day nationwide. At a time when it has become somewhat common to see politicians showing their emotions while updating residents on corona, anchors too are at times scrapping their stoic demeanors while reporting this story. Some news veterans suspect the indifferent comportment that has long defined TV anchors is giving way to a more human bearing.

“The Voice of God — I’m not sure that’s what people are looking for now,” said Wallace, who describes Fox News’ anchor-viewer connection as the network’s “secret sauce.” “They are looking for people who are in this together — this sense of, you understand my struggle.”

Deborah Jaramillo, associate professor and director of the film and television studies program at Boston University, and author of Ugly War, Pretty Package: How CNN and Fox News Made the Invasion of Iraq High Concept, said giant news stories typically vault an anchor or two to the next level, as President Donald Trump’s election did for MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Showing emotion, such as CNN host Don Lemon getting choked up over fellow host Chris Cuomo’s coronavirus diagnosis, may help launch TV talent.

“There’s a greater emphasis on humanity, a greater emphasis on emotion,” Jaramillo said. “You see that conveying of emotion playing out in public on cable news. Perhaps some of that connects with viewers.”

Short Cuts

With Cuomo broadcasting from his basement, NBC’s Lester Holt anchoring NBC Nightly News from his apartment and the vast majority of newsroom staffers toiling from home, the networks have redefined the way they produce news these last couple months. In several markets, including Tampa, Florida, and Washington, D.C., competing news stations are teaming up to send a lone photographer to a static news event such as a mayor’s press conference, then sharing the video. Fewer photographers on site means better social distancing, and frees up photographers to chase down more enterprising stories.

“It’s so smart and long overdue,” Andrew Heyward, Knight senior researcher in TV news innovation at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said. “The culture of innovation that emerges from this results in a smarter workflow.”

Networks and stations alike are getting better every day at producing newscasts with talent and staffers spread around a given market. “I was pleasantly surprised to realize we could function with people working from home,” Fisher said. “I had a lot of trepidation about it. You realize, something you think you have to do this way, you actually don’t have to do it that way.”

Execs said viewers are more lenient about production values that may not be what they are accustomed to. “People are starved for information now,” Godwin said. “They really don’t care if the live shot is not 100% well lit. Skype and Zoom work just as well if you ask the right questions.”

With Manhattan’s CBS Broadcast Center closed, station-level talent, both at CBS’s owned stations and affiliates, have anchored CBS Evening News on weekends during the crisis. Monique Ming Laven, anchor at KIRO Seattle, anchored the national broadcast May 2-3. Godwin called it “a terrific experiment” that benefits both parties.

“We get the opportunity to strengthen our relationship with affiliates, and it’s an opportunity for them to increase their exposure,” she said.

With CBS News unable to send live trucks to all corners of the country, she added, the affiliate base plays a vital role in helping cover all regions of the U.S.

The pandemic prompted NBC to launch Nightly News: Kids Edition, which Holt anchors, in mid-April. The newscast targets uncommon news consumers. “It helps children process what is happening,” said Jones. “We’re making sure the youngest among use are informed and educated.”

Jones said there’s no end date set up for Kids Edition.

Good News

Newscast producers have been keen to inject a bit of good news in the broadcasts, such as Steve Hartman reporting on a newspaper deliveryman handing out groceries on CBS Evening News, David Muir reporting on a high school principal visiting his graduating students on ABC’s World News Tonight and Harry Smith speaking on Nightly News about homemade greeting cards. “I think it’s just us being human,” said NBC’s Jones. “It’s human moments that show we are all in this together.”

Time will tell if positive news occupies more than the final slot in an evening newscast after the crisis, but the pandemic has certainly stoked a desire for inspiring content. “There’s definitely a thirst for some other news,” Wallace said. “With all the vegetables we serve, people do want some sweets. They’ve had enough Q&As with doctors.”

Time will also tell if TV news, a vital part of people’s lives during the pandemic, remains vital viewing when things get back to normal. The networks are eager to keep meeting sky-high demand.

“Some people who discover evening news might stick around,” said Heyward, former president of CBS News. “They see how important TV news has been on a very complicated story, and that should enhance the value of TV news in people’s lives.” 

The President continued his attacks on the media Thursday during a briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic, calling CNN fake news, referring, as he often does, to MSNBC as MSDNC, and saying exiting NBC News president Andy Lack was "a hack."

He was asked by a reporter how Fox News had affected his thinking about the pandemic. The President said he watched Fox but that it had not affected him more than any other outlet, though they were "more honorable than some." He suggested that he didn't think much of most of those others.

Trump said NBC was "dishonest news," which was why they "fired Andy Lack."

NBC announced last week that Lack was exiting as part of a management restructuring.

Trump said he was only guessing about Lack's firing, and said the reporter would have to ask them, but then the President continued in the same vein. "Andy Lack was a hack and they fired him and they did a big favor to the world and this country," he said.

He pointed out that NBC was a division of Comcast, which he called, again as he has in the past, "Concast, with an 'n.'"

The President said CBS was having a hard time and "not getting it straight" with a "false report" where "they actually got people to make it look like there's turmoil."

The President actually had something nice to say about one outlet, ABC. Anchor David Muir had interviewed the President May 5. "I thought he gave me a very fair interview," the President said. He called Muir a "very good professional. I've had very good relationships with him, as you know," he said.

But his final pronouncement was that the news media "is a mess."

The President continued his attacks on the media Thursday during a briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic, calling CNN fake news, referring, as he often does, to MSNBC as MSDNC, and saying exiting NBC News president Andy Lack was "a hack."

He was asked by a reporter how Fox News had affected his thinking about the pandemic. The President said he watched Fox but that it had affected him more than any other outlet, though they were "more honorable than some." He suggested that he didn't think much of most of those others.

Trump said NBC was "dishonest news," which was why they "fired Andy Lack."

NBC announced last week that Lack was exiting as part of a management restructuring.

Trump said he was only guessing about Lack's firing, and said the reporter would have to ask them, but then the President continued in the same vein. "Andy Lack was a hack and they fired him and they did a big favor to the world and this country," he said.

He pointed out that NBC was a division of Comcast, which he called, again as he has in the past, "Concast, with an 'n.'"

The President said CBS was having a hard time and "not getting it straight" with a "false report" where "they actually got people to make it look like there's turmoil."

The President actually had something nice to say about one outlet, ABC. Anchor David Muir had interviewed the President May 5. "I thought he gave me a very fair interview," the President said. He called Muir a "very good professional. I've had very good relationships with him, as you know," he said.

But his final pronouncement was that the news media "is a mess."

NBCUniversal, which has been quietly testing an ad-supported news streaming platform, will officially launch its OTT service in early May, the company said at SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas.

The service, which has been operating in test mode under the name NBC News Signal, will be called NBC News Now.

“It will be something you can access on Apple TV or Roku or any of those other boxes. We are going to launch with 8 hours of programming, including live updates at the top of every hour, and when breaking news mandates, we’ll go up live as well,” Noah Oppenheim, president of NBC News, told reporters. “So, for folks who don’t have a traditional cable subscription it will be a great way to access the reporting of NBC News.”

The free-to-consumer service will be available over the top to none pay TV subscribers, Oppenheim added. “So, for folks who don’t have a traditional cable subscription it will be a great way to access the reporting of NBC News,” he said.

The service will also feature content from various NBCU linear platforms, many of them not hard-news-oriented.

“We will actually be reaching into other corners of NBCUniversal, E! News, sports, you name it, for some of that content. People’s consumption habits are changing rapidly and it’s not limited to just young people,” Oppenheim said.

NBCU is by no means early to the party here, with CBS Interactive having launched an ad-supported streaming news platform back in November 2014. 

NBC News has recently launched a beta version of a new website that represents a first step in a “broad redesign” across all of NBC News, Today and MSNBC’s digital properties that will span their web sites and mobile and OTT apps.

Viewable at beta.nbcnews.com, the beta of the NBC News web site redesign features a sleeker design with more focus on video, photos and other visuals.

NBC News said the new offering is also faster, and features page layouts that change based on the intensity of the news cycle, “Channels”-themed collections that organize its coverage on key topics of the moment, and “sticky” ads that aim to be more visible.

“Redesigning all our properties for all platforms in one coordinated initiative is an enormous undertaking," said Moritz Gimbel, VP of Product and Design for NBC News. "We are so excited to show such an important element of it publicly today for the first time. Our audience, advertisers, and journalists will reap the benefits for years to come.”

NBC News said its product and design teams partnered with Code and Theory to develop the design system and deliver on the creative strategy of the redesign. Both teams co-located in a dedicated design and product development studio in NBC News’ offices from the project’s inception, NBC News said.

“With the redesign of our digital news properties, we are pleased to offer advertisers more opportunities for reaching consumers,” Trevor Fellows, EVP of digital sales and partnerships at NBC News, said in a statement. "Our new design provides a range of high impact and visually stunning ads that will allow our clients unique and innovative ways of reaching our audience.”