As “NBC Nightly News” and “ABC World News” square off in a fierce battle for the top spot among the A25-54 demographic, “Nightly” anchor Brian Williams — whose broadcast still tops in total viewers — talks to the AP’s David Bauder about the competition:
While he’s anchoring, TV monitors out of sight of the cameras keep Williams informed of what ABC and CBS are doing on their simultaneous newscasts. Despite this, Williams said it’s important to program his broadcast “with blinders on.
“We don’t know what the competition is going to do,” he said. “While it is true that I am sometimes surprised at the alternatives being offered, it will in no way affect the choices I’m going to make the next day or the day after that.”
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Bauder also includes a funny anecdote about Williams getting mistaken for one of his NBC News colleagues:
Wearing shades as he walked back to work following a pizza lunch recently, Brian Williams ducked into Rockefeller Center and passed a tour guide who noted the celebrity sighting to his group: “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s Tom Brokaw.”