NBC Debuts The ‘Early Nightly’

> Update: 12:38am: “ABC already does this…NBC and CBS are following the World News Tonight Webcast,” an e-mailer asserts…

The timing is awfully interesting. On Sunday, CBS announced that Katie Couric would offer a “web-exclusive rundown on-camera from the newsroom” early each weekday afternoon starting Sept. 5. Then on Monday, NBC premiered the Early Nightly, a daily on-camera video blog by Brian Williams.

But the timing is just a coincidence. NBCers have been talking about and testing the Early Nightly for about two months. (If anything, CBS is copying NBC, not the other way around — Couric is starting a blog next September, 15 months after Williams.)

Williams will record the one to two minute video every morning, immediately following the Nightly News morning editorial meeting. “Brian will informally report on the day’s news outlook and how ‘NBC Nightly News’ is likely to cover it that evening,” an MSNBC.com spokeperson says.

The video will be accessible on MSNBC.com, NBC affiliate Web sites, and NBC Mobile. Here’s the first Early Nightly…