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NEW YORK (AP) — For more than half a century, ABC, CBS and NBC have aired evening newscasts each weeknight on television. This fall, the competition has spread to another medium.
The launch of John Dickerson’s “CBS News Prime Time” in September means that all three news divisions have unique streaming newscasts at night, a nod to the future and bid to reach young people who aren’t watching television at dinnertime.
Dickerson’s newscast debuted nearly a year after NBC’s “Top Story” with Tom Llamas. ABC’s “Live Prime” with Linsey Davis started in February 2020. Each streams live for at least an hour starting at 7 p.m. Eastern and are repeated later in the evening. All can be seen for free.
“The revolution will not be televised,” Davis quipped. “It will be streamed.”
She and her rivals have big ambitions.
“We want to be the best news show, period,” Llamas said. “I don’t want to be just the best show on streaming.”
Looking past the similarities, they each have intriguing differences in approach, more so than the broadcast evening news shows led by Lester Holt, David Muir and Norah O’Donnell.
Network news divisions aren’t looking to replace the television broadcasts, which usually reach around 20 million people combined every night, more during cold weather months.
The streamcasts almost certainly don’t approach those numbers, although if anyone knows for sure how many people are watching, they aren’t telling. There isn’t a single outside source that measures audience size, like the Nielsen company does for TV. The networks