The disintegration of network television as a relevant force in the lives of Americans has been brought home with a vengeance by recent reports that NBC is mulling eliminating a full hour of its prime-time lineup and returning the dead air to local affiliates to fill. But the 10 p.m. timeslot may not be the only casualty. The sputtering Peacock is also plotting major changes to its once-iconic Meet the Press news program. Host Chuck Todd may soon be going the way of a failed buddy crime-solver show.
“The executive producer of Meet the Press, who NBC announced last week is ‘shifting’ over to the streaming side, was pushed out amid the Sunday politics show’s ratings woes, two people familiar with the matter told” The Daily Beast, the news site reported Aug. 29.
This does not bode well for Todd’s future; the leftist publication states:
“David P. Gelles, a long-time CNN producer who helped develop the now-defunct CNN+ streamer, was parachuted in to help fix the sinking show, which is down 21 percent in total viewership and 24 percent in the key advertising demographic compared to last year — more than any of the other Sunday politics shows.
Gelles’ first order of business, multiple sources said, is deciding what to do about Chuck Todd, who despite recently signing a two-year extension… has baffled many at NBC with how long he’s remained atop the struggling show.”
Official News Network of the Swamp
The network’s struggles should come as no surprise. The swift decline of shrill woke cable network CNN has deflected attention from the full transformation of NBC News into a stultifyingly wooden vehicle for the ruling political establishment in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
Did you know NBC News serves as “the exclusive media partner” of a Swamp think tank?
The Aspen Institute touted its 2022 Aspen Security Forum in a June 27 press release. The avowedly globalist group takes pains to stress its “resolutely non-partisan” strivings yet the lineup of speakers at the forum gives the game away. Touted participants included Biden administration National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who served as the first president of the Obama Foundation, ex-Obama administration heavyweights Michele Flournoy and Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Trump impeachment/Russia hoax star Fiona Hill. Funders of the event included Big Tech titans Google and Microsoft, defense industry giant MITRE, and infamous globalist “philanthropy” the Rockefeller Foundation.
Is it appropriate for a major news outlet to officially “partner” with such events?
Chuck Todd Conservative Circus
Perhaps no single face at NBC News, however, best represents entrenched DC coziness more than Chuck Todd. The man who has served as host of Meet the Press since 2014 can always be counted on to serve up a bland gruel of establishment talking points, whether it be slamming progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as he sought the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020 or openly lamenting that a handful of big-box outlets no longer has a stranglehold on the news in America anymore.
A glance at Todd’s “right side of the aisle” guests on Meet the Press shows how woefully out of touch he and NBC News are in 2022. Ardent anti-Donald Trump Republicans who have no genuine base of support within their party and assorted professional “conservatives” cut from the same cloth can always count on having a friendly chat with Todd.
Names to appear this year include:
- Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
- National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry.
- Trump-bashing outgoing GOP governors Larry Hogan of Maryland and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas.
- Fred Upton (R-MI), who, like Kinzinger, voted to impeach Trump and then declined to seek re-election.
- Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH).
- Bill Kristol pals David French, Jonah Goldberg, and Stephen Hayes.
- And, of course, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who was crushed by double digits in a party primary as she attempted to retain her House seat after serving as the lead Republican attack dog against Trump over the past couple of years.
The above list only dates back to January. How can anyone pretend that these are the movers and shakers in the Republican Party or of conservative thought today?
What results from these one-on-ones is the furthest thing from journalism. Does NBC expect to draw an audience by airing shamelessly transparent tandem dances such as the following, which took place between Todd and Kinzinger on Aug. 28?
“TODD: I’m just curious. Liz Cheney said that in some cases, she may have to help a Democrat win against sort of an anti-democracy Republican. Do you feel that’s what you’re going to be doing over the next couple of years yourself?
KINZINGER: Yes. Yeah, I mean, look, the biggest issue – not everybody agrees with me, certainly in my party. And even Democrats like to say things like, ‘Well, but you’re still a conservative.’ Yeah, I’m a conservative. But the bottom line is: The biggest threat right now to our country is [the threat to] democracy. And if you have Republicans that are running against even left-wing Democrats that believe in democracy and believe in voting, that person should be elected over somebody who basically would overthrow the will of the people and ultimately destroy this country.”
CNN went woke and has been thoroughly broken. NBC has gone full-tilt establishment and is staggering towards the same fate. It’s quite remarkable. Telling the American people what they should want instead of providing them information and letting them decide for themselves turns out to be bad media business practice at the network level too.
