Getty Images
Analysis: The first presidential debate in decades to bypass logistical norms has also created a cacophony of media coverage that could drown out voters’ simple insights.
Any debate between 2024 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump is bound to be a media circus. This debate has a few more numbers.
Some of television’s fiercest rivals will come together at 9 p.m. Thursday night with a noble goal: to ensure that as many Americans as possible have the opportunity to see the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates make their views known in a rare one-on-one duel.
The television networks that are joining forces to make this possible are not necessarily doing so out of a sense of goodwill.
The June 27 debate is CNN’s. Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, NewsNation and NBC News are among those also televising it, mainly because the Warner Bros. Discovery network offers it in the name of public service (and advertising) and rivals are likely to reach more viewers with it than without it. CNN’s overall ratings are declining under the auspices of its parent company, and it is not presumptuous to assume that some of the networks airing the CNN debate will get larger audiences than CNN itself.
At a time when it is difficult to attract large crowds to the television, there is little reason not to watch the broadcast.
CNN is undoubtedly taking advantage of this arrangement. To be able to simultaneously broadcast the event, competitors must display the network’s red logo and are not allowed to show their own anchors and correspondents on screen during the event’s broadcast. Why would they take advantage? Well, the networks that do the broadcasting are allowed to fill two scheduled three-and-a-half minute commercial breaks with their own ads, not to mention their own pre- and post-show programming, provided their sales reps can strike some deals (a person familiar with recent talks says movie studios, political action committees and financial services firms are among those interested).
The unusual media model emerges in the context of the debate and is a direct result of the chaos that has overwhelmed the companies that produce most of the entertainment and information in the United States.
In another era, anyone wanting to watch such a groundbreaking news event would have tuned into one of the three or four television networks airing it and expected no-frills, average coverage. In 2024, news fans will certainly see a bit of that, but also a lot of other things. A significant portion of viewers will likely tune in via streaming or digital media, and will undoubtedly watch the debate alongside interactive windows featuring social media chatter, sports scores or other videos. Viewers will expect to see the candidates hurl insults at each other, make absurd claims and maybe even tangle with CNN’s anchors. They will also expect analysts to spout partisan opinions and commentary rather than always sticking to the facts.
The appetite for such things has doomed the typical debate. Between 1988 and 2020, the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates organized the process and provided moderators itself. But modern politics has generated so much outrage that both Republicans and Democrats wanted to bypass the organization their own parties set in motion in 1987 after several elections in which the debates had been organized by the League of Women Voters.
We should have seen this coming. In 2020, Trump and Biden canceled their last CPD debate in favor of competing town hall meetings. Biden turned to ABC News, while NBC News counter-programed by sending a savvy Savannah Guthrie to moderate Trump. Clearly, the candidates and their campaigns would rather cater to their constituencies and avoid the narrow architecture of traditional debate logistics, which aim to limit some of the outbursts that have become inevitable in the age of social media (and often prove ineffective in doing so).
Rather than tuning into a single event, viewers have the opportunity to create their own. They can choose a specific pre- and post-show programme and, in most cases, watch commercials tailored to the target audience of their chosen television. On Thursday 27 June, television will have something that will go down in history – a day when broadcasters would rather air a competitor’s programme than create the before and after experience with content of their own.
The trick these days is to place content tied to the main event in multiple locations and hope to attract viewers who flock to one of those locations.
ABC News plans five hours of coverage distributed across its own network and streaming services Hulu and ABC News Live. Fox News will save its primetime schedule for the event, adding Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum to co-host an hour-long pre-debate show at 8 p.m. and Sean Hannity to host a post-debate show at 11 p.m. The Fox broadcast network will offer its own feed with “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream.
CBS News will have Norah O’Donnell on the air starting at 8 p.m. and will offer an analysis of the show that the networks can use in place of the local news they normally broadcast. The Paramount Global network will also offer several hours of programming through its live streaming service. Chris Cuomo will speak on News Nation before and after the debate.
NBC, which arguably operates the broadest array of news outlets, will go all out. The network will present pre-event coverage on NBC News Now, its live streaming hub, with Tom Llamas, Hallie Jackson and Kristen Welker continuing after the debate ends. On the NBC network, Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie will lead post-debate analysis. Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow will anchor MSNBC’s 7 p.m. pre-debate coverage, reappear after it ends and stay on the air until 1 a.m., when MSNBC rebroadcasts CNN’s big event.
In this environment, it is the responsibility of the viewer, the potential voter, to make the most of the whole affair. The broadcasters and the candidates will not make it easy for them to do so.
