Howard Kurtz Media Notes: Networks Grouse About Coverage of Obama's Conference

But little changed. White House officials essentially dictated the timing when they decided to hold an evening session on the 100th day of Obama's term and again on July 22. In that instance, network executives say, the White House announced the event on its Twitter feed less than an hour after informing them.

Since the Reagan era, when cable news was in its infancy, prime-time presidential pressers have been a relative rarity. George H.W. Bush held one in 1992, but the broadcast networks dismissed it as an election-year event and refused to carry it. The following year, when Bill Clinton held his first evening news conference, CBS and ABC stiffed him; NBC carried the first half-hour; only CNN and PBS aired the whole thing. George W. Bush held four such events in eight years.

But the networks have deemed Obama a box-office draw, featuring him on everything from "60 Minutes" to "The Tonight Show" to a 90-minute ABC town meeting on health care.

Ari Fleischer, a former Bush press secretary, says the 43rd president didn't like evening news conferences -- "he thought they became more about the reporters than about him" -- but that scheduling was crucial. Once, he says, "we scheduled something on a Thursday and NBC went crazy," because several of its hits were on that night.

"Frankly, it's commercial," Fleischer says. If it's not a big night for the networks, he says, "they put civic duty and pride first. But you don't go up against 'American Idol' -- not even Barack Obama."

Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's first White House press secretary, says ABC and CBS rejected her first prime-time request in 1993 on grounds that the press conference was "not news."

"With Obama," she says, "everyone wants to have a relationship with the president because he's been good for ratings. I've been impressed by how easily they seem to be able to roadblock an hour. No other president in TV history would have been able to do it."

The financial stakes are considerable. ABC, CBS and NBC have given up as much as $40 million in advertising revenue to carry this year's East Room events. "We lose more than $3 million a show," Moonves told Mediaweek. The Fox broadcast network has declined to carry the last two Obama sessions.

Every president exercises considerable control over his encounters with reporters, picking on selected journalists and deflecting questions he doesn't like. But Obama's discursive style has also tended to depress the news value of the sessions.

He began the last one with an eight-minute opening statement. His answer to the first question, including a follow-up, lasted more than seven minutes. All told, the lengthy responses allowed time for only 10 reporters to be recognized. And Obama's professorial style of explaining policy at length, rather than offering punchy sound bites, may serve him well, but rarely yields dramatic headlines.

One result: The audience is gradually dwindling. The last presser drew 24 million viewers, a significant number but a 50 percent decline from Obama's first such event in February.

The lingering question is how much of an obligation the networks have to carry these news conferences, given that they're widely available on the cable news channels.