Networks Weigh Editorial Concerns Against Public-Interest Obligations
Trade reporting from Deadline and Axios framed the networks’ decision as a dilemma between airing what they feared could be “potentially false claims about the 2020 election” and the risk of White House and Federal Communications Commission backlash. Networks weighing such calls balance editorial-standards concerns against public-interest obligations and the precedent of carrying presidential addresses. Those are the networks’ and the trade press’s stated terms, and no motive beyond them is asserted here. The verifiable record is the carriage split itself: full linear coverage on Fox and C-SPAN, streaming-only or delayed coverage on ABC, NBC, and CNN, and no coverage on CBS.
The decision to relegate the address to streaming services carries particular weight given the historical context of the networks involved. The National Broadcasting Company and Columbia Broadcasting System were both founded as radio networks in the 1920s, with NBC eventually encompassing two national radio networks, the prestige Red Network and the lower-profile Blue Network. They gradually began experimental television stations in the 1930s, with commercial broadcasts being allowed by the Federal Communications Commission on July 1, 1941. In 1943, the U.S. government determined that NBC’s two-network setup was anticompetitive and forced it to spin off one of the networks; NBC chose to sell the Blue Network operations, which eventually became the American Broadcasting Company.
All three networks began regular, commercial television broadcasts in the 1940s. NBC and CBS began commercial operations in 1941, followed by ABC in 1948. A smaller fourth network, the DuMont Television Network, launched in 1944. The three networks originally controlled only a few local television stations, but they quickly affiliated with other stations to cover almost the entire U.S. by the late 1950s. From the 1950s to the 1980s, during the network era of American television, these three commercial broadcast television networks–NBC, CBS, and ABC–due to their longevity and ratings success, were informally referred to as the “Big Three.”
A Shift in the Broadcast Landscape
The three networks’ dominance was interrupted with the launch of Fox in 1986, leading it to join them as one of the expanded “Big Four,” while the viewership shares of all the major broadcast networks declined over the following years. By nightfall, the split over how to handle the president’s address had become the story as much as the speech itself. For viewers who tuned in expecting to find the president on their usual channel, the experience depended entirely on which network they watched–and on which screen.
The decision by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN not to carry the address on their main linear channels, while Fox and C-SPAN did, represents a notable departure from the traditional role broadcast networks have played in providing a common platform for presidential addresses to the nation. The move also highlights the ongoing transformation of the television landscape, where streaming services have grown in prominence but still reach a smaller, more self-selected audience compared to the broad reach of linear broadcast television.
