Coverage of a very different convention
Welcome to the coverage of a convention that practically nobody attends! As we’ve known for some time, due to COVID, the Democratic National Convention (10 p.m., CBS, NBC, ABC) will be a virtual affair, with few delegates or speakers present at the original convention site in Milwaukee.
“PBS Newshour” (8 p.m., check local listings) will begin coverage earlier, as will hosts on their respective Fox News, CNN and MSNBC series.
We all know 2020 has been a strange year. So strange, that news has become the ratings star!
Due to concerns about COVID as well as the election and the dwindling number of new series on broadcast TV, the ratings for news has increased. ABC’s David Muir has been hosting the mostwatched show on all of television many weeks and months in a row. Recently, Fox News’s prime-time viewership has eclipsed that of other cable and broadcast networks.
The networks may be underplaying their convention coverage. Viewers are clearly turning out for news.
On the other hand, the networks may be following their own history. It’s been some decades since conventions generated drama and huge audiences. When riots roiled the 1968 Democratic convention, protesters chanted, “The whole world’s watching,” because in an era of only three networks, it seemed like everybody was tuning in.
There hasn’t been much drama at a political convention since 1976, when Ronald Reagan came close to wresting the nomination from incumbent President Gerald Ford. In 1992, the Democratic nominee Bill Clinton hired TV executive Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (“Designing Women”) to produce a film to “introduce” him to viewers. That same summer, the Republican convention had failed insurgent candidate and CNN’s “Crossfire” co-host Pat Buchanan deliver a barn-burning speech that delighted some delegates and scared many voters.
In some ways over the past quarter-century, TV news has come to ignore conventions at the very same time that they have become packaged TV events.
This year may be different. After all, it’s neither a conventional convention, nor a “TV” event anymore. It’s going to resemble the kind of digital Zoom conference so many have been attending since COVID kept us all indoors.
› “American Greed” (10 p.m., CNBC, TV-PG) profiles swindler John Bravata, who enticed more than 400 middle-class investors to put money in his real estate scam. Enticed by a free lunch and the promise of joining his “Billionaire Boys Club,” many forked over their savings.
› “Bad Chad Customs” (10 p.m., Discovery, TV-14) promises to transform a 1957 Cadillac into something out of this world. Am I the only one who has seen too many shows dedicated to reviving Detroit classics?
› TCM dedicates 24 hours to the films of Maureen O’Hara, including “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (8 p.m., TV-PG), “Miracle on 34th Street” (10:15 p.m., TV-G) and the 1963 melodrama “Spencer’s Mountain” (3:45 a.m., TV-G), which inspired “The Waltons” a decade later.