Let no one accuse Brian Williams of trying to lower expectations a week before his election night special coverage on Amazon Prime Video.
“This will be the first — if you'll forgive the phrase — new product introduction in the election night space since color television,” the former NBC News anchor said shortly after landing in Los Angeles, near where Amazon is building a set for him at its massive new studio.
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Amazon is the pioneer streaming service to compete in live news with television on its biggest night, a presidential election. And its headliner is the quintessential TV guy, one who told the world about the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump from Rockefeller Center for NBC News.
Williams, 65, is certainly well known, but he's asking potential viewers to take a leap of faith. Amazon has no track record in the election space and, unlike NBC, CNN, Fox News and others who will cover the results on Nov. 5, has no news division behind it. Williams said he and his executive producer, a fellow former NBC hand Jonathan Wald, have “built a temporary, one-night news division over the past 60 days.”
They have contracted with The Associated Press for video and Reuters for results data, and hired a stable of commentators and journalists to work that night. They include some of Williams' frequent guests from when he hosted “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC, including political consultants James Carville, Mike Murphy and writer-comedian Baratunde Thurston.
Former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith will be stationed at Democrat Kamala Harris' election night headquarters, with Tara Palmeri of Puck at Republican Trump's. Others on their one-night staff include historian Douglas Brinkley, former “The View” co-host Abby Huntsman, the Washington Post's Jackie Alemany, ex-CNN and ABC News reporter Jessica Yellin and former U.S. Rep Tim Ryan of Ohio. Reporters from Axios, Politico and Puck will also be working for the Amazon team, Wald said.
Some things will feel familiar
In many respects, it will be like a familiar election night television newscast — acceptance speeches aired, pundits opining. Amazon won't have its own decision desk, but the broadcast will discuss when other news organizations call individual states. “All viewpoints will be represented,” Williams said. “We are striving to cover it straight with minimal drama.”
“Now that the ‘magic walls’ have been around for a few cycles, we get it, we understand it," he said. "So we'll just trot out a few new things that viewers haven't seen before. There is a formula to election night. We're not going to break that.”
They'll operate from the giant former MGM soundstage, where “The Wizard of Oz” and countless other productions originated, bought by Amazon and tricked out with the latest gadgetry.
“It is traditional in the sense that you have a traditionalist in Brian Williams,” Wald said. “But everything else about it, from where it is on and how we are presenting things, is new.”
Wald promises a broadcast that he says will seem more streamlined, less cluttered, than its rivals. A typical news division often brings everyone it has available into its election night coverage, and often it feels that way.
Even before this event, Amazon founder and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos has played a role in the election. Also the owner of The Washington Post, Bezos was instrumental in the newspaper's decision announced Friday not to endorse either Harris or Trump, causing an uprising among many at the newspaper.
Williams comes forward after keeping a low profile
Williams anchored “NBC Nightly News,” then the top-rated evening newscast, from 2004 to 2015, losing that job after embellishing his role in war coverage. Given a second chance, he hosted “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC from 2016 until signing off in December 2021.
He's kept a low profile ever since, enjoying a grandson born just days before leaving MSNBC, and volunteer firefighting down at the Jersey Shore until Amazon came calling.
“This is the first thing that really made my toe tap,” he said. “This got some old competitive juices flowing — emphasis on old. It is a weird place to be because you know me well enough to know there was no more bullish broadcaster than I was. I completely believed in over-the-air broadcast news, and cable.”
Yet every television executive he's talked to tells him that streaming represents the future, if not the present. “This feels like a chance to get on a train that is leaving the station,” said Williams, who spoke by phone Sunday from an airport in Los Angeles.
The election night newscast will begin at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 5. It will be available for free to anyone with a device who logs on to amazon.com: no subscription or log-on will be necessary.
Williams is prepared for the possibility that the ultimate mystery — who’s going to be the next president — will not be known by the time he has to sign off. That will probably be about 10 hours after he starts give or take some time. “A lot of of good energy drinks have come out in the last couple of years,” he joked.
Williams said he has no idea what this means for himself, or Amazon, after Nov. 5.
“It's a big undertaking and they're taking a big swing with this,” he said. “All I know is my part in it, and that's one night. I don't know if we're going to look back on this as a first for Amazon or as an experiment for Amazon. I don't know. That's up to them.”
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.