Do We Need A Full Hour Of NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams?

Do we need a full hour of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams? The short answer is: NO. TV is so quick to try to expand on even a modest amount of success. Nightly has surged, somewhat, since the election. Credit the economic crisis if you want. But, that doesn't mean NBC should expand it to a full hour.... then two years later cry about the lack of viewership. On Twitter.com/JeffParsonsDC today I did suggest that a network might consider adding a half hour of news that actually holds the government accountable for getting us out of the mess we are in. The danger is that mainstream media often becomes the mouthpiece of liberal politicians and their agendas. We don't need that. We need solid, information, indepth reporting on a nightly basis. Forget the fluff. Give us substance.

Here's the background on Williams from TVNewser.
But NBC's surge in the evening has been strong enough for the news division president, Steve Capus, to suggest that NBC is positioned to be the first network to expand to a full-hour newscast. (He did not set any timetable for that move.)
In addition to listing some of the reasons behind Nightly News regaining, and holding the #1 spot (was it that SNL hosting gig?), Carter's story reveals what the NBC News stable means to NBC Universal.
Official figures are not disclosed, but a senior NBC executive estimated that NBC News, consisting of the broadcast news division, the all-news cable channel MSNBC and a much-viewed Web site, MSNBC.com, supplied about 13 percent of the overall profit of its parent company, NBC Universal.In January, NBC Universal announced a yearly profit of $3.1 billion. That would put the NBC News contribution at over $400 million.CNBC, the Weather Channel and Telemundo are not counted in the news profits. But with those outlets added, the percentage of contribution to NBC Universal's profits climbs to 25 percent - or about $775 million.

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