At least 12 TV channels – including the major national-cable news operations – covered Mayor Giuliani’s emotional late-afternoon news conference yesterday to announce his decision not to run for Senate.
Reports of his bombshell decision began circulating in the early afternoon.
Cable news operations beat all the broadcast stations to the punch when New York 1 broke the news about 12:21 p.m. with a report citing sources close to the mayor.
Fox News Channel reported the news at 12:52 p.m., MSNBC broke into its programming around 12:53 p.m., and CNN weighed in at 12:57 p.m. and remained with the story through the afternoon.
The networks confirmed the reports moments later, along with the Associated Press about 1:04 p.m.
Of the broadcast news organizations, WCBS/Channel 2 was first to break into its programming with the news at 1:02 p.m. followed by WNBC/Channel 4 and WNYW/Channel 5 at about 1:07 p.m.
The last to air a report about Giuliani’s decision was WABC/Channel 7 at approximately 1:15 p.m. WWOR/Channel 9 did not break from regularly scheduled programming and neither did WPIX/Channel 11 which continued to air children’s cartoons.
The cable news channels covered the news almost continuously through the mayor’s news conference, while the broadcast networks rejoined the coverage in time for the mayor’s conference shortly before 4 o’clock.
CNBC, CNNfn, C-SPAN and Spanish-language WNJU/Channel 47 Telemundo also joined in with live coverage of the press conference.
When Giuliani finished speaking, shortly after 4:15 p.m., brief comments from Giuliani’s would-be rival, First Lady Hillary Clinton were carried on NY 1, WCBS/Channel 2, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and C-SPAN.