According to a release, more than 100 actors, executives, writers, and producers are protesting the decision by NBC News to host a town hall with President Trump on Thursday night at the same time as a previously planned Joe Biden event on ABC News.
The Hollywood crowd targeted NBC Universal CEO Jeff Shell, NBCU News Group president César Conde, and Brian Roberts, head of NBCU parent Comcast, in an open letter, saying the network helps Trump to counterprogram his Democratic competitor at 8 p.m., wrote the Wall Street Journal.
Last week, after Trump tested positive for coronavirus and declined to engage in a simulated format, ABC booked Biden for Thursday, initially the date of the second presidential debate, which was canceled.
NBC announced its presidential acquisition on Wednesday, with “Now” anchor Savannah Guthrie moderating outside in Miami.
The open letter reads, according to Deadline, By agreeing to air his town hall as counter-programming against the town hall of Vice President Biden on ABC, you are allowing the President’s bad conduct when undercutting the Presidential Debate Commission and doing a disservice to the American public.
We conclude that this kind of ignorance of our democracy’s standards and laws is what has brought our nation to this precarious situation, it says.
We are telling NBC to air the town hall of the President either before or after Vice President Biden so that American voters will have the chance to see them.
“This Is Us” producer Dan Fogelman and cast members Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are included in the list of signees.
Furthermore, the letter was signed by “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” executive producer Neal Baer, producer Ryan Murphy, actor-producer Ben Stiller, and writer Seth MacFarlane of “Family Guy.”
The Wall Street Journal was told by an NBC News rep that the network had programmed the president at 8 p.m. Since in a previous town hall, it had offered the same slot to the former veep and it decided to keep things balanced between the two contestants.
Also, the event will begin at 9 p.m. The ABC case, which lasts for 90 minutes, while NBC’s is one hour, will also have been in disagreement.
NBC News wanted to ask ABC News to carry its town hall later that night, but the offer was refused, the news channel said to two people familiar with the matter.
