Will Nets Give Bush Time In Prime?

President Bush plans to address the nation for about 20 minutes at 8 p.m. Monday, and the White House is “seeking time from television networks for the president’s remarks,” the AP reports.

But the networks haven’t handed over the valuable sweeps month time yet. The nets are “mulling” whether they will air the speech, and they probably won’t decide until Monday, one exec told TVNewser this afternoon. They’ll spend the weekend trying to figure out whether the speech will be newsworthy enough to deserve wall-to-wall coverage.

Reps for NBC, ABC, and CBS said no decision has been made at their respective networks yet.

The cable nets will presumably all carry the speech live. Reps for CNN and MSNBC said they didn’t know how their primetime lineups would change to reflect the address to the nation.