Broadcasters Break Into Programming For Obama Announcement

The Broadcast networks broke into regular programming Monday, joining the cable news nets as they covered President-elect Barack Obama's announcement of his new national security team.

That included the naming of his former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state.

While there were a number of personnel announcements, including the retention of Robert Gates as defense secretary, not surprisingly most of the questions were about Clinton and the selection process. Obama said that the process was pretty straightforward, and not as "juicy" as the journalists might be looking for.

The broadcast networks remained on the air with commentary on the pick, with Andrea Mitchell anchoring NBC coverage, Diane Sawyer anchoring for ABC and Katie Couric for CBS. Most cut back to regular programming at about 11:30 after the 10:45 announcement.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.