Current Events > NBC faces backlash for booking Trump town hall at same time as Biden's on ABC

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/media/nbc-trump-town-hall-biden-abc/index.html

When NBC set out to schedule a television town hall with President Trump, the top priorities were safety and parity with Trump's challenger Joe Biden. The network's Biden town hall went off without a hitch in Miami, Florida on October 5. NBC's plans for Trump are almost identical: The same outdoor venue in Miami, the same 8 p.m. time slot, the same 60-minute allotment of time. But there is one big difference: ABC already announced it will be holding a town hall with Biden at the same time on the same night. So now NBC is "giving Trump exactly what he wants," in the words of one exasperated senior staffer: a made-by-TV rivalry between the president and Biden. NBC is hearing a chorus of criticism for its scheduling decision -- from liberal activists, working journalists, professors, former NBC executives, and even some current NBC Entertainment stars. Some staffers inside NBC News and MSNBC are also perturbed by the decision, with some likening it to collusion between the Trump campaign and the network, sources said. No one from the news division has publicly criticized the move. The dueling town halls will air Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, on the same night that the Commission on Presidential Debates was originally scheduled to hold a town hall-style debate between Trump and Biden.

Now, instead, the two men will talk past each other on competing networks. "Having dueling town halls is bad for democracy," former NBC "Today" show star Katie Couric tweeted Wednesday. "Voters should be able to watch both and I don't think many will. This will be good for Trump because people like to watch his unpredictability. This is a bad decision." Both town halls will also be available on-demand, of course, so voters can watch whenever they want. That hasn't stopped any of the criticism. "This is a bad result for American voters, who should not be forced to choose which to watch," said Mark Lukasiewicz, dean of Hofstra University's communications school, and previously the senior vice president of specials at NBC News. "So much is still going wrong with how TV journalism copes, or still fails to cope, with @realDonaldTrump."

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I mean, they're not wrong.

It would also be better for ratings, so this plan makes absolutely no sense from NBC. None, at all.

Now instead of owning a particular night, they are competing for... what reason?

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It's an incredibly stupid decision especially from a news outlet that has an obvious liberal bias.
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Who cares? No one is "undecided" in this election and people will just watch whoever they like on tv, and watch 3 second twitter videos of whoever they don't like embarrassing themselves out of context.

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I think the ratings will be one of the best polling indicators yet.

is 2020 anyone who wants to watch both can do it online right ?

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