TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: How the President's News Conference Ended Up Live on Four Networks

How the President's News Conference Ended Up Live on Four Networks

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Sun, 1 May 2005 03:16:33 -0400

By JACQUES STEINBERG

In a showdown that featured inside-the-Beltway lobbying and
bare-knuckle boardroom negotiating, Donald J. Trump and President Bush
effectively squared off yesterday in pursuit of the same parcel of
real estate -- a piece of the NBC-TV prime-time lineup. And it was the
president who blinked first.

But in the end, the president's aides appeared to be every bit as
canny as those representing Mr. Trump. The decision by the White House
to move up the starting time of its news conference by a half-hour --
a move that NBC sought, at least in part to protect the starting time
of Mr. Trump's "Apprentice" show -- set off a chain of events that
wound up garnering the president live coverage on all four major
broadcast networks.

The decision, announced in the evening, had the effect of putting
sufficient pressure on CBS-TV and Fox Broadcasting, to prompt them to
announce that they, too, would carry the news conference live on their
main networks, reversing decisions that they had announced publicly
earlier in the day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/politics/29tvbox.html?ex=1272427200&en=853726429c6fce6d&ei=5090

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