Broadcast Nets, Fox Included, To Carry Obama Primetime News Conference
President will detail future role of military in Afghanistan in Dec. 1 conference
By David Tanklefsky and Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/30/2009 2:32:59 PM
Both Fox and ABC announced Monday (Nov. 30) that they will carry President Obama's primetime address at West Point on Tuesday night, Dec. 1. The other major broadcast networks, NBC and CBS, had announced their plans to cover the address last week.
Fox did not carry the president's July 22 press conference or his Sept. 9 primetime address to Congress.
The president's 8 p.m. EST news conference will push a new episode of So You Think You Can Dance to after the address in the Eastern/Central time zones. It will air at its normal time on the West Coast.
Fox News' Shepard Smith will anchor the broadcast portion of the coverage.
ABC had planned on airing A Charlie Brown Christmas, but will move it to next Tuesday (Dec. 8) at 8 p.m.
Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and Fox Business Network will have live coverage of the speech as well as a postmortem on its contents.
Bret Baier will anchor Fox News' coverage. The network's primetime lineup will follow the speech beginning with a live edition of The O'Reilly Factor at 9 p.m. MSNBC will also have a live primetime lineup after the speech with Countdown with Keith Olbermann at 9 p.m., The Rachel Maddow Show at 10 p.m. and Hardball with Chris Matthews at 11 p.m.
Wolf Blitzer will lead CNN's coverage, with contributions from a number of analysts and reporters.
The president is expected to announce the deployment of approximately 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan but also set a firm timetable and conditions for withdrawal.
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