Big Four to Pass on Bush Speech

The broadcast networks are not expected to carry President Bush (news - web sites)'s primetime speech Monday night, in which he will lay out a "clear strategy" for the future of Iraq (news - web sites).

The Bush administration has not requested the Big Four to air live the president's address to an audience at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., scheduled for 8 p.m. EDT on the last Monday of the May sweep, a crucial period when networks chase high ratings in order to set ad rates.

<snip>

At least one network, Fox, has offered the speech to any of its affiliates that wish to carry it.

<snip>
"The president looks forward on Monday evening to discussing with the American people and with a global audience a clear strategy on how we need to move forward," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters Friday. "We hope that Americans will take the opportunity to listen

The speech is expected to be carried worldwide on cable networks, he said.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&e=20&u=/nm/television_bush_dc

........so, FOX will carry it, and if you pay for tv, you can watch it. interesting.............

speculations???

that the major News Networks are not carrying this

This is history folks

The Media just dumped bush... and Karl Rove must know that there is
something major going on iwth US Media

Expect arm twisting to get them to carry it though, so it ain't
over until the fat lady sings

good one!

:P

Imagine CC singing the National Anthem? :crazy:

Bad DU-ers! :spank:

on another Smirk speech, back in the fall of 2002. . . he wanted to lay out his intent for Iraq, the networks opted for more solid ratings. . . much like they're claiming this go round.

this one is

And the last time they gave him full prime time was the so called
press conference...which only those of us fit for some suffering watched... and that was painful

This is history...

Now I have to wonder why CBS (parent company GE) and ABC (parent Company Disney) are dumping on him... CNBC can afford to, they will carry it on Cable...

Again, this definitely makes you wonder.

CBS is owned by Viacom
NBC is owned by GE

but the question still stands, why will they not carry it?

He is going to look like a fool all scraped up in his face, so Rove pressured the networks not to cover it.

My understanding is the accident happened over the weekend.

I heard about the speech on Friday morning and even then the WH wasn't really asking the majors to broadcast it.

The networks ought to declare that purely political speeches in front of a selected captive audience with no "q & a" session afterwards will not be shown in prime time without compensation (SOTU addresses and national conventions excepted).

from article:

NBC, Fox and ABC will proceed with their scheduled programing for the 8-9 p.m. hour -- an episode of "Fear Factor," the finale of "The Swan" and the broadcast premiere of Oscar-winning "A Beautiful Mind," respectively.


NBC and Fox's sibling cable channels, MSNBC and Fox News, will carry the speech.


CBS is not expected to make a final decision on whether to preempt its Monday 8-9 p.m. comedy block -- season finales of "Yes, Dear" and "Still Standing" -- until Monday but sources indicated the network was leaning toward sticking with its regular programing.

~~~~~apparently * is no contest

So, the shrub has fallen so far that CBS feels it'll have better ratings with "Yes, Dear" and "Still Standing"?! I thought those shows had already been cancelled.... :eyes:

actually I hadn't even heard of those shows, guess that shows that CBS would rather air some inane nodescript comedies than the chimp, hahaha. :D

it would almost be worth it so they could say "Instead of 'A Beautiful Mind', we are bringing you President Bush."

If the press office didn't say, please carry this, and they're not carrying it, then why would Rove be upset? They didn't ask the big four to carry it, and they're not carrying it. I guess if this bothered Rove he'd simply ask them to carry it after the fact.

if bush had requested time and been refused, it might be a first but the networks seldom carry prez speeches since the advent of cable all news stations. bushco knows this. that's why they didn't ask.

his big chance to talk to the American people to (once again) make his case for the wisdom of going to war in Iraq? No? Then why are the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN making this sound like it's something important? More bullshit. I can't imagine what he is going to say to defend this indefensible disaster.

No one can believe him.

nobody believing anything he says. The media is Bush driven so his own friends must be turning on him. Faux is probably hopeless but I'll tune in just to laugh at Hannity. LOL Contrary to the belief of Hannity, not all of Bush's problems are driven by the liberals.

The big four? I thought there were only three.

Educate me.

I suspect that Mr. Rove will have a behind-the-scenes "talk" with the networks, and by midday Monday, they'll have "seen the light" about broadcasting the speech as a public service.

The White House doesn't WANT the speech to be carried because of all the crap that's going on right now and Junior's little spill on his tricycle (won't look very imposing with scrapes and bandages on his face) but there's no way they can cancel the speech without losing TONS of face. So they encourage the networks not to carry out. Plausible?

i was thinking the same thing

I was going to post the same comment. Between the mess on W's face and the fact that he really doesn't have anything to say about Iraq that will make any sense, Rove has decided to pull the plug on this one.

He* doesn't have anything to say that will make any sense. It will just be more of the same blather.

putting Bush's mangled face on tv would scare the bejesus out of America.

Ya mean like having several square inches of face scaped off by the gravel near Crawford when you fall off yer bike? BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

Time to put the training wheels back on!

:evilgrin:
dbt

Because the networks will have honest coverage and will present critical analysis of what he says. The cable networks will simply fawn all over him like they did with Pickles appearance on the Tonight show. "Oh isn't she funny, she has such great comic timing, blah blah blah..." gag

know its the same old shit and not newsworthy. I will be the same crap with a possible new spin. Blah, blah, blah.

The networks will show one or two quick soundibtes afterward, which will make him look as presidential as he can be these days.

They know full well that in the state he's in, anybody watching the whole speech will see him for the hollow idiot he is. He's come to where he can't even carry off a prepared speech.

The last thing they want is sustained TV coverage of their decaying, self-destructing puppet.

Probably Chimpy is having more of a drug/alcohol problem than usual (hence the banged-up face), so they figure he'll do more stuttering and staring than usual. If it's not on the networks, hardly anyone will witness the sad performance live and they can use a few coherent seconds on the news to "prove" what a great speech it was.

no prime time audience here and europe will be asleep and the middle east will be just waking up.

sad scene for the troop's morale! I'll bet he wears his red arm band and bus driver hat with his uniform tonight! The cosmetics of KKKarl Rove know no bounds! The fools will trash the image of every American military institution including the sacred ground in France to win a losing battle! What time does the next Nuremberg Rally come on Fox?

Really. It's exactly what they want. Probably less than 10% of the public will actually see the entire scripted, stilted and thoroughly unbelievable performance. This way Karl and Rush and others can spin the message however they want.

And what he has to say there. If he's giving the UN everything they want and establishing a date where the US troops pull out then his speech just may be broadcast.

Anything less has Rove's fingerprints all over it and the speech will be pointless for the US public.

Bush probably got an earful from FOX last time for screwing up American Idol.

Seriously. It's as simple as that.

It's unpresidential to have your face all fucked up while giving a speech. So, encourage the big networks to NOT run it and then no one will watch, but they will all just hear snippets (read: SPIN) about it on the radio and in newspapers the next day.

So, everyone will hear the spin, but only the few will watch the speech with his cuts and bruises and inability to form sentences.

Fox should be forced to though!

he doesn't wnat the sheeple to see that he was done in by another pretzel :7

Someone mentioned in another thread that Bush has had a busy weekend and therefore not so much time for Rove and Hughes to prepare him for the speech.

If Rove and Hughes thought he was going to do himself any good, you can bet he'd be on the networks. The fact that he isn't says a lot.

Too gruesome.

lol

Wouldn't it be true that the TV - stations would get high ratings cause people wanna see * cuts?, perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but I'm sure there's lotsa people tuning in for that.........so that does make it a bit odd....