Obama Runs Against Reruns; Reruns Lose

Many media critics were sharply scolding the nation's television networks Wednesday for their decision to ignore the results of Tuesday's Democratic primaries, which resulted in Sen. Barack Obama receiving enough delegate votes to guarantee his nomination as president at the Democratic convention in August. "History was made in the nation last night. It just wasn't carried on the nation's airwaves," Advertising Age's John Rash wrote on the trade publication's website. Rash observed that ABC, CBS and NBC ran mostly reruns and that their failure to cover the primary election results represented "a lost opportunity to find new audiences for the networks' nightly newscasts." (ABC briefly interrupted its programming to carry Obama's victory speech.) The New York Times observed that CNN outdrew most of the broadcast networks Tuesday night and concluded that it was likely "the second time in history that a cable network attracted more viewers than a broadcaster during a major news event." The networks' decision also allowed Fox to move to the front of the ratings race with a schedule of reality shows during primetime Tuesday. Its Hell's Kitchen was the night's highest-rated show.


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