(Image source: Charles Sykes / NBC)


BY JESSICA SIBERT

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

You’re watching multisource entertainment video news analysis from Newsy.


Brian Williams’ new Monday night news show, “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” premiered to, well rocky reviews. But both Williams and his first guest, Jon Stewart, have high hopes for it.

Williams: “Years from now when television historians retrace our first tentative steps here while preparing archival footage for the 25th anniversary broadcast of “Rock Center,” it will be known that the first ever live in studio guest was a huge part of nighttime cable entertainment…”

Stewart: “This is why we have test shows. I think when you’re ready to air and you get your regular time slot, this thing is going to be bang-zoom. It’s going to be great.”

Broadcast live from Rockefeller Center, the highly anticipated and promoted newsmagazine will be built around the week’s biggest events with extensive coverage, interviews… and Williams’ lightened persona, according to a blogger for the St. Petersburg Times.

“Through it all, Williams proved an affable, professional host, still working out when to switch his smoothly professional news guy persona with the wisecracking amateur stand-up comic we see on The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live.”

Williams brought in top, well-recognized anchors and reporters from all over the country for his show, but a writer for the New York Times said the newsmagazine is still a risky idea.

“Magazine shows are not a great bet for a network: They aren’t as expensive to produce as a sitcom or drama, but they don’t usually draw large prime-time audiences.”

In fact, this proved to be true last night. “Rock Center” came in 3rd for shows airing at 10 p.m. Monday evening with only a little over 4 million viewers. A writer for Media Bistro wasn’t surprised.

“It’s been 20 years since the launch of a successful prime-time newsmagazine, and last night’s debut showed why. It’s hard to be different. It’s harder to be good. It’s a million-to-one shot to be different and good. “Rock Center” was, at times, different and good, but it didn’t come close to being both at the same time.”

A reporter for NPR said though the hard-hitting journalism behind "Rock Center” is good, it’s also going to be hard to stick to in the race for more viewers.

“Time and the competition for viewers have reduced more than one newsmagazine to turn to true-crime stories and the latest celebrity revelation. If Williams and "Rock Center" want to escape that trap, they're going to have to figure out how do something I'm not sure is possible: lure prime-time audiences with serious news.”

Williams and NBC insist they aren’t going after the most viewership. They said they just want to provide a new outlook on the news—in a timeslot that desperately needed to be filled.