With the 2015-2016 upfronts behind us, we wanted to take a look at how the news divisions of the broadcast networks were mentioned — or not mentioned — during the annual advertiser presentations. As we told you Monday, NBC News was left out of the NBC upfront. As for the others:
ABC: Adweek’s Jason Lynch covered the ABC upfront and writes, “[ABC Entertainment president Paul] Lee made sure to give ABC News a shout-out, thanking Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Diane Sawyer and David Muir, which made NBC’s omission of its news division at Monday’s upfront all the more glaring.” This was also the first upfront for Ben Sherwood as president of the Disney/ABC TV group. Just before last year’s upfront, Sherwood was promoted from ABC News president.
Univision: At the Tuesday morning upfront, network programming chief Alberto Ciurana touted late-night newscast Edición Nocturna which continues to attract more younger viewers than its English-language competitors. Meanwhile, Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas, who co-anchor the evening news, took to the stage to talk about the value Noticias Univision adds to the network.
Telemundo: This upfront Tuesday night was co-hosted by an NBC Newser, the Today show’s Natalie Morales. Telemundo’s evening newscast anchored by Jose Diaz Balart and María Celeste Arrarás got a shout-out from Telemundo president Luis Silberwasser who said the newscast is up +18 percent making it “the fastest-growing evening newscast regardless of language.”
CBS: At this presentation Wednesday, it was all about Stephen Colbert. But CBS News got some love. As Lynch reports, “[CBS chairman Les] Moonves also paid tribute to CBS News and saluted soon-to-retire Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, who was on hand (pictured), making NBC the only network to snub its news division during upfronts.”
FOX does not have a news division, but relies on Fox News Channel to cover big news events.
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