Obama's Preemptive TV Strike to Hurt Broadcasters

President Barack Obama will hold a news conference Monday. It's expected to eat up the first hour of prime time; that alone could cost broadcasters more than $9 million in lost ad revenue. "Notice they're not going on Friday or Saturday," one network exec complained. "They're . . . preempting our better shows. You're not happy to lose a 'House' if you are Fox, or two of the better comedies at CBS, or 'The Bachelor' at ABC -- we're all going to take a bath." President Obama is also mulling a shorter prime-time appearance Feb. 16 tied to the economic stimulus package. Even if Obama speaks for only about 15 minutes, that's an ad break that the networks won't get back, adding to their losses. And White House officials have said that on Feb. 24, Obama will address a joint session of Congress to give the equivalent of a two-hour State of the Union speech. Although the broadcast networks can opt out of carrying these presidential appearances, "you don't want to incur the wrath of the White House" because "if you're on the [poop] list, you are last in line for interviews and things like that," one network exec explained. But besides the economic hit, broadcasters are worried that this kind of shock-and-awe approach to prime-time preempting might be part of an Obama strategy to charm his way to a new economic-rescue plan. "As we're meeting this guy, from a network perspective, it's like, 'Is this part of the plan for him?' " the network exec said. "Is this what it's going to be: Is he going to take to the airwaves every time he has something to say?"