It Was Obama's Night, but Not on Broadcast

History was made in the nation this week. It just wasn't carried on the nation's airwaves. Instead, the broadcast networks' cable competitors (or cousins, given today's media conglomerates) ran with the most riveting reality TV of the night: Sen Barack Obama (D-IL)claim his party's presidential endorsement on the same St. Paul stage where his opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), will accept the Republican nomination during the Republican National Convention in September. It wasn't as if most of the networks with news divisions had anything more compelling to program, as ABC aired all reruns and NBC and CBS each had only one new episode. Instead, it was a lost opportunity to find new audiences for the networks' nightly newscasts.
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* Was Tuesday A Milestone for TV News? (CJR)
http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/was_tuesday_a_milestone_for_tv.php