News Networks Bump Clinton Out of Picture

"We thought that was an appropriate way to handle it," Feist said. "We can't always control the timing of what the candidates choose to do."

"I suppose," Fox's Hume told viewers, "that this primary night coverage that the cable news channels give to these candidates, they've turned into a platform for these speeches, which have gotten longer and longer and longer."

In more than one control room, executives talked about pulling the plug if Obama kept talking. "If he'd gone on for another hour, we would have faced a decision to move on and probably would have," Griffin said.

As for Clinton, she has not even mentioned her defeats on the last two primary nights, raising the question of whether hers are concession speeches at all.

On Feb. 12, the cable networks carried Clinton's speech after she lost the Potomac primaries, but broke away after 12 to 13 minutes, with MSNBC co-anchor Keith Olbermann observing there was "nothing in the speech" about her losses that night. When Obama made his victory speech in Madison, Wis., a short time later, the networks stayed with it for 21 minutes. Only then did they break away to cover McCain, who had already started speaking to a small crowd in Alexandria, and carry the last 10 minutes. Several commentators observed afterward that the McCain event seemed anticlimactic after Obama's larger, more boisterous crowd.

The math was similar on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. The networks gave Clinton 11 minutes and McCain 8, then immediately switched to Obama, who held forth for 20 minutes.

Craig Crawford, a Congressional Quarterly columnist, said the networks had no choice but to cut away from Clinton Tuesday night after Obama forced the issue.

"That was a definite violation of the etiquette of these election night dramas, where people take turns giving their speeches and don't step on each other," he said. "When you break a rule like that, it's a very hostile gesture."

Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."