- Amazon is testing news with a Brian Williams election-night special on Prime Video.
- The special touts more than a dozen contributors like James Carville and Shepard Smith.
- Its executive producer told BI how Amazon plans to strike a nonpartisan tone.
Amazon is getting closer to jumping into news coverage with an election-night special hosted by Brian Williams.
"Election Night Live with Brian Williams" will air on Prime Video at 5 p.m. ET on November 5. It will feature more than a dozen journalists and contributors, including political consultant James Carville, former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, and comedian Baratunde Thurston.
Williams' longtime producer, Jonathan Wald, shared plans for the upcoming special in an interview with Business Insider and emphasized it would take a nonpartisan approach.
"We don't encourage both side-ism," said Wald, who will executive produce the special. "We have a fairly clear mandate and that's to report what's happening as it's happening. When you do speculate, make it clear you're operating from a point of view."
He said that in a highly divided country, striking a down-the-middle tone should give participants more credibility to call things as they see them. He also stressed that the event wouldn't shy away from fact-checking or calling out a candidate who misspeaks or makes an egregious statement. The program won't strive to call races before others, but instead take cues from established news networks.
"Election Night Live" is a gamble for Amazon, which has no history in news. A one-off news program is in keeping with its strategy of getting into live event programming like sports and live shopping, though. It's the type of programming that has the potential to reach big audiences and advertisers, especially those with time-sensitive product launches willing to pay high prices to reach them. Amazon will use its site — which Comcore said had 236.9 million unique US visitors in June — and this week's NFL "Thursday Night Football" programming to drive viewers to the special.
Details of the special began leaking several weeks ago. It will be offered in English in most countries where Prime Video is available, regardless of whether viewers have a Prime subscription, which should vastly expand its potential reach.
Some mainstream news outlets have faced backlash over political coverage in an increasingly polarized time. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was pulled into political controversy in recent days after The Washington Post, which he owns, announced it wouldn't endorse a candidate for president.
Wald said Amazon played no role in deciding the format or approach of the election special.
Williams is a low-risk choice of host for Amazon. He was the longtime anchor of "NBC Nightly News" who was suspended after embellishing some details of a helicopter ride in Iraq. He had another act hosting "The 11th Hour" on MSNBC from 2016 until 2021. Overall, he spent 28 years with NBC.
"He's the right choice because of a number of factors, not the latest of which is, it's one of the things he does best," Wald said. "I don't think there's a YouTuber or X host or Instagrammer who could do a better job of keeping track of everything that happens with dignity and grace and fairness and do it in a down-the-middle way that's entertaining."
Along with familiar TV personalities, viewers will see some interactive elements and an emphasis on reporters from digital news outlets including Puck, Axios, and Politico (which shares a parent with Business Insider).
"We're putting them all together as a de facto affiliate network," Wald said. "That's where the action is editorially. They're often first to break news. We want to leverage that."