Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, November 5th, 2024:
PRODUCTION NOTES
In theory, paid subscribers to this newsletter should have begun receiving a morning video from me beginning yesterday. But despite my testing everything ahead of time, some subscribers haven't been receiving them. Thanks to some help from Substack, the problems should be worked out. So all paid subscribers should receive their first "Too Much TV This Morning" video tomorrow. If you don't, please email me at
Also, it's election day in the U.S. and not only is less news happening today overall, I suspect most people aren't much in the mood to read a long newsletter. So today's edition will be a bit shorter than the norm.
LIKE EVERYTHING AMAZON DOES, 'ELECTION NIGHT LIVE WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS' LOOKS LIKE IT WAS DESIGNED BY DRUNKEN MONKEYS
I am all in favor of streamers taking chances. But when I heard that Prime Video had selected former long-time NBC and MSNBC anchor Brian Williams to anchor a new one-off live election night special, I was more than a bit concerned. If you are a streamer and want to carve out a new audience, hiring an anchor who is the epitome of the traditional broadcast news establishment seems like a bad move. Williams is a talented and sure-footed anchor. But there is nothing about him that would lure me into turning away from one of the more traditional election night coverage options.
But because it's my job, I spent some time watching the show tonight and my most gracious take is that if feels like a high-budget YouTube live stream. There is a massive virtual wall, a huge open set and a lot of familiar cable news pundits, including James Carville and Mike Murphy. I'm sure it all looked great on paper. But the actual show is often awkward and clunky. Williams reads things off his phone, and because the show apparently doesn't have an analytics team, he spent much of the night passing along the results called by the AP and other networks. 
Williams has the ability to be almost unflappable, no matter how awkward the proceedings. But there were moments during the night when he looked as if he felt he was trapped inside some computer-generated representation of what the algorithm thinks a human-based show might look like.
I am no programming executive, but I am pretty sure that when viewers tune into a news show, no one wants their reaction to be "wow, this is really unsettling."
ONE OF THOSE INTERESTING STORIES THAT NO ONE CAN CONFIRM
Every reporter has a couple of juicy stories that they want to publish, but that they can never quite seem to confirm to a level where they feel comfortable pulling the trigger. For me, one of those stories involves former NBC reporter and anchor Tamron Hall. There have long been rumors that she had a relationship with Donald Trump while she was at NBC, at a time when Trump was working on The Apprentice and married to Melania.
The J.K. Trotter Substack Interesting Mysteries has a long piece recounting the timeline of the rumors and while there is no definitive smoking gun here, it certainly is thought-provoking:
But there was, in fact, some truth to it. According to people familiar with the matter, NBC journalists did indeed investigate Hall and Trump’s relationship in the fall of 2015, and found evidence that supported the existence of an affair that led to Hall’s pregnancy and subsequent abortion. They had gathered this material as part of a larger reporting project about Trump’s past girlfriends. The evidence was compelling enough to continue investigating as Trump’s campaign gained steam.
However, nothing ever came of the reporting project. NBC never published a story about Trump’s ex-girlfriends or his relationship with Hall. And, less than two weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Hall abruptly left the network. These events created a mystery that has never been solved: What exactly happened between Trump, Hall, and NBC?
One of the interesting things we know for sure is that the two had a closer relationship than was publicly apparent. When hackers gained access to a voice mail box used by Donald Trump and of the 35 messages later released to Gawker, four of them were from Hall:
In one of the voice messages, [Hall] tells Trump that she was “happy I took your advice” and met with someone named “Matt.” The meeting went well, she says: “I celebrated by going to Gucci, and I’m going to use your discount, because there’s a green dress that’s like $3,000, and I need a discount bigger than the one—my discount.” …
This is one of those stories that feels as if there is more to it then we know. But I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get enough hard-core proof to come to a conclusion.
TWEET OF THE DAY
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5TH,:
* Election Night Live with Brian Williams (Prime Video)
* Game Changers Series Premiere (Discovery)
* Love Village (Netflix)
* Reindeer Mafia Series Premiere (MHz Choice)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH:
* Alan Cumming's Paradise Homes Series Premiere (Britbox)
* Feuds Turned Fatal Series Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
* Gangnam B-Side Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Love Is Blind: Argentina Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Meet Me Next Christmas (Netflix)
* Pedro Páramo (Netflix)
SEE YOU ON WEDNESDAY!