Tuesday, June 5, 2007

NBC networks join the Gore 2008 campaign

Al Gore hasn't yet announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election, but it seems inconceivable to me that he wouldn't leverage his worldwide exposure in next month's Live Earth concerts.

Pushing itself to the head of the line of True Believers, NBC Universal has announced that it will be providing an astounding 75 cumulative hours of Live Earth coverage on its various TV networks.

Brent Baker of Newsbusters describes the deal this way:

In what will surely be one of the largest ever, if not the largest, in-kind contributions to a presidential campaign if Al Gore decides to run, NBC Universal announced late last week that its networks will devote an incredible 75 hours of time on Saturday, July 7 to showing Gore's “Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis.”

In addition to the entirety of NBC's prime time that night hosted by Ann Curry of NBC News, CNBC will carry seven hours of coverage from 7pm to 2am EDT; Bravo will show the concerts around the world for 18 hours starting at 8am EDT; and both the Sundance channel and the Universal HD channel will showcase the concerts for 22 hours each beginning at 4am EDT.

Rounding out the 75 hours, mun2 will run a two-hour show at 5pm EDT and Telemundo will air a one-hour special at 7pm EDT. And that's not counting how NBC's press release touted that “MSNBC will broadcast special coverage of this global concert event throughout the day with live reports from the concerts in New York and London.”

12 June update: To whoever it was at NBC Universal that just read this blog entry: HOWDY!