It is hard to argue that streaming services have dominated network TV in terms of primetime programming. Most of the top 50 TV shows are now on one of the major streaming services. Two areas in which streaming services have been unable to tap into is live sports and nightly news; mostly because these are “live” and not pre recorded.
With the 2020 Presidential Election on the minds of millions of Americans, one has to wonder if Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu will jump into the nightly news broadcast world.
Several generations can remember growing up with Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings, David Brinkley, Ted Koppel and Tom Brokaw. Some even remember the scandals of Dan Rather and John Stossel. While there is always a risk of something unforeseen happening on live TV, especially with the news, there are still millions that will tune into election coverage this year.
Will the major streaming outlets fork over hundreds of millions to get a news service up and running. With Jeff Bezos already owning the Washington Post, it would make the most sense for Amazon Prime to offer a Washington Post news TV Channel.
What will be very interesting is to see if Netflix or Disney+ is willing to take a chance on a YouTube influencer that has a huge pull with the younger demographic. Can you imagine Shane Dawson or David Dobrik being a news anchor during the 2020 Netflix Nightly Election coverage?
Netflix has unsuccessfully tried political talk shows such as The Break With Michelle Wolf. Most of these shows were cancelled after one seasons or didn’t evn get an entire season. That is a completely different animal than live news though. If Netflix were to put a tab for live news coverage at the top of their user’s feeds, they would immediately get over five million viewers; especially on a hot button news topic.
When are we going to see live news on the streaming channels? In 2020 or will it be further out?