Beginning Monday, Chicago will become the nexus of prime-time broadcasting, with every major cable news and TV network setting up shop at the United Center during a potentially historic Democratic National Convention.
Some 15,000 journalists are expected to descend on the city to cover the whirlwind nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris — an eleventh-hour replacement for President Joe Biden — as she challenges former President Donald Trump in November for the highest office in the land.
From Fox News to TikTok, the whole world will be watching what happens in Chicago — inside and outside the United Center — which could well set the political course of the country for years to come.
“It’s an opportunity to witness history,” said Chris Cuomo, the veteran cable news anchor and NewsNation host, who will be broadcasting live from the convention floor each night.
While the process is largely ceremonial — Harris was officially nominated by a majority of delegates during a virtual roll call earlier this month — the convention, which runs Monday through Thursday, will likely bring a spectacle of speeches, protests and, the networks hope, plenty of must-see TV.
The house that Michael Jordan and the championship Bulls team built on the Near West Side has been abuzz with activity for more than a month in preparation for turning the United Center into a giant TV sound stage, with a star-studded political lineup and 5,000 delegates as extras.
The DNC, which took possession of the United Center on June 24, began repurposing 25 hospitality suites last month to serve as anchor booths for TV and cable networks. The suites have been “white-boxed” with an added layer of drywall and flooring to create the temporary studios, convention officials said.
Outside, the parking lot south of the arena has been transformed into an expansive media village, where trailers, satellite trucks and remote workspaces are clustered by network. Members of the network pool — ABC, NBC/MSNBC, CBS, CNN and Fox — are allotted 80,000 square feet each, while other media outlets have grabbed smaller chunks of asphalt.
“There’s wires everywhere, there’s people running around, hard hats and reflective vests, and it’s an active construction zone,” said Peter Velz, director of media logistics for the DNC. “And by Sunday morning, it becomes a media playground for all of the convention activities.”
There’s a lot at stake for the country, and the panoply of networks hoping to lure viewers to watch the DNC.
The final night of last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee averaged 25.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen audience data. The audience peaked at 28.4 million viewers during Trump’s acceptance speech.
Not surprisingly Fox News, the right-leaning network and top-rated cable news channel, held serve, topping all other networks with 8.8 million prime-time viewers during the RNC finale, according to Nielsen. CNN averaged nearly 1.7 million viewers, while MSNBC reached 1.2 million.
Bret Baier, a 27-year Fox News veteran and chief political anchor, will be broadcasting nightly from Chicago during the convention, and believes the network could well draw viewers from across the political spectrum for a week focused on the Democrats.
“I can’t tell you we’re going to win the week,” said Baier, 54. “I can tell you we’re going to cover it fairly, and it’ll be interesting television. We will be very competitive if we don’t win.”
In addition to his regular 5 p.m. newscast, “Special Report,” which averaged 2.9 million viewers in July, Baier will anchor Fox’s prime-time coverage of the DNC from the network’s perch inside the United Center, just as he did at the RNC in Milwaukee last month when Trump was anointed the Republican presidential candidate.
Baier, who has helmed eight conventions since taking over the top anchor role at Fox in 2009, has aspirations to win the ratings battle once again when Harris, whose ascendant candidacy is pilloried nightly on the network’s lineup of opinion shows, formally accepts the Democratic nomination.
“The opinion shows, they obviously have a conservative bent, and they clearly cater to a conservative audience,” Baier said. “But if you look at our broad swath of viewers, we have the most independents, most Democrats, most Republicans, and exponentially, the most viewers, not just for Republican events.”
Chicago-based NewsNation, the fledgling cable news network that supplanted WGN America four years ago, averaged 136,000 prime-time viewers during the RNC, according to Nielsen data. It is hoping for bigger things when its home city hosts the DNC.
While much of the nightly prime-time lineup broadcasts from the East Coast, NewsNation shares its primary newsroom with WGN-TV on West Bradley Place in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood, and plans to utilize its local resources to enhance convention coverage.
“We have all the technical teams there, we’ve got all the gear there, we’ve got all the expertise there,” said Mike Viqueira, NewsNation’s Washington bureau chief. “The WGN factor can’t be undersold as well, because they have the institutional knowledge of the city. That gives us an advantage, particularly when it comes to covering stuff that happens outside the arena.”
Inside the arena, Viqueira said airing certain speeches in their entirety, from President Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to the current slate of Harris and running mate Gov. Tim Walz, is a “no-brainer.” Other decisions will be made on the fly, such as when wrestler Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance tank top during a speech at the RNC.
“It was interesting to watch, and it was sort of a memorable moment,” Viqueria said. “Whether it had particular news value or not, these are questions that I think that people wrestle with all the time.”
NewsNation has about 50 journalists credentialed for the DNC, including Cuomo, its prime-time star.
Cuomo, 54, who long hosted the top-rated prime-time show on CNN, was fired in December 2021 for allegedly violating network standards by advising his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as he navigated sexual harassment allegations.
He joined NewsNation in October 2022, becoming the face of the nascent network’s prime-time lineup. His nightly one-hour show leads the ratings for NewsNation, averaging 176,000 viewers last month, according to Nielsen.
Cuomo, who did not attend the RNC last month, will anchor NewsNation’s DNC coverage from the 300 section of the United Center for four hours each night beginning Monday. NewsNation didn’t get one of the 25 converted hospitality suite studios, and Cuomo likes it that way.
“We’re coming there to do the job. I’ve done that job at two different networks,” said Cuomo, while hiking up a mountain with his dogs Wednesday afternoon. “NewsNation is not there to play the game. It’s there to expose the game.”
Positioned as an “unbiased” cable news network, NewsNation has essentially doubled its audience since Cuomo’s arrival nearly two years ago. But it remains a fraction of the big three cable news networks — right-leaning Fox, left-leaning MSNBC and centrist CNN, which has seen its own viewership decline under new leadership in recent years.
Cuomo said that while viewers usually default to their own camps for major events like political conventions, there’s a growing segment of the electorate identifying as independent that may be seeking a less partisan take on the proceedings. That increasingly important block of voters, he said, may find what they’re looking for with NewsNation’s DNC coverage.
NewsNation saw a big bump in the ratings during the 2022 midterms, when the network exclusively carried several local debates of national interest.
“Every event is an opportunity,” Cuomo said. “The more people see what’s being offered, the more they’re going to come. They want to get past left and right. They want to get back to reasonable.”
MSNBC, CNN and the major broadcast networks are also planning to have a significant presence in Chicago during the DNC.
CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper will broadcast prime-time coverage of the DNC all week from inside the United Center, backed by a long list of commentators and analysts. Outside the arena, CNN reporters will cover “events and demonstrations” happening around Chicago during the convention, according to a news release.
At MSNBC, anchors Joy Reid and Alex Wagner will be on the ground at the convention each night, while the rest of the day — from “Morning Joe” to Rachel Maddow — will be all about the DNC through Harris’ acceptance speech on Thursday night.
Broadcast networks are also all in, with NBC lead anchor Lester Holt hosting the evening news and DNC coverage each night from Chicago. Holt will be right at home after anchoring for 14 years at CBS 2 Chicago earlier in his career. “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie will join Holt for prime-time coverage along with a number of NBC network reporters in Chicago.
ABC lead anchor David Muir will broadcast “World News Tonight” from Chicago and will host nightly convention coverage. On Sunday morning, “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” will originate from Chicago.
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Chicago TV stations are also planning programming in and around the convention. CBS 2 has hired former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who helped lure the DNC to Chicago, to provide local analysis of the event. Meanwhile, NBC 5 is reuniting former anchor Carol Marin with veteran political reporter Mary Ann Ahern for nightly special editions of the 6 p.m. newscast live from the convention site.
On Sunday morning, NBC 5’s Ahern will be a panelist on “Meet the Press” while ABC 7 political reporter Craig Wall will appear on “This Week” ahead of the convention.
Sally Ramirez, senior vice president of news, NBC Chicago/Telemundo Chicago, said the station will focus on national politics and local impact, including both expected protests and disruption.
“It’s really almost just trying to help people navigate through the city,” Ramirez said. “There’s also a lot of fear about coming downtown because of traffic or closures.”
Chicago last hosted the DNC in 1996, at the then 2-year-old United Center. With the current polarizing political climate and simmering unrest, some fear that 2024 may be a flashback to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when the whole world watched as protests and violent clashes erupted in the streets of Chicago. Both local and network TV news operations are preparing for the possibility that what happens outside the convention may be more compelling than what happens inside.
“We saw all the college protests about the issue of Israel and Gaza and administration policy, so I think the potential is there,” said Fox anchor Baier. “We’ll be ready for it. Obviously, we’ve got contingency plans and people covering those things.”
NewsNation anchor Cuomo was there as a teenager when his father, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, delivered a stirring keynote address at the 1984 DNC. He also attended his father’s nominating speech for Bill Clinton in 1992, which launched the Arkansas governor to the White House.
Despite widespread “grievances” among the electorate, Cuomo said he doesn’t expect a repeat of the turbulent 1968 Chicago convention this time around.
“We are not in 1968, we don’t have a transcendent outrage in our society,” Cuomo said. “We don’t have Vietnam right now, and that’s obviously what was creating the cataclysm in ’68.”
However it plays out, the DNC will have a significant cleanup job ahead. Its lease requires the return of the United Center to its owners, the Bulls and Blackhawks, “in its original state” by Sept. 13, according to convention officials.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com