How NBC News' Election Night Digital Wins Forecast the Future of Broadcast News

If Election Day is the political world’s equivalent of the Super Bowl, then NBC News’ digital platforms scored a touchdown to kick off the month. NBCNews.com and NBC News Now saw their two highest days on record on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, and also dominated the social space among the big three broadcasters. “It reflects a lot of what we’ve been working on throughout the past year,” Catherine Kim, NBC News’ executive vice president of editorial, tells TVNewser about her staff’s game plan. “We leaned into live results, live information, and live streaming and leveraged the full operation of NBC News across big events like Election Day.” That preparation resulted in more than 100 million video views for NBC News Now—the streamer’s largest audience to date. Meanwhile, NBCNews.com saw over 30 million unique visitors, with the constantly refreshing live results pages driving up page views to the realm of 120 million, well beyond what it achieved in 2020. Additionally, the Election Day live blog now holds the record as the most-viewed article in the site's history. Kim also made an early bet on TikTok as a news-hungry social media platform, and that marker paid off on Election Night. The network estimates that it received 127 million views on TikTok on Nov. 5, and another 110 million views the following day when President-elect Donald Trump clinched his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Those numbers handily surpassed broadcast rivals ABC News and CBS News on the platform. It should be noted that in comparison to its digital growth, NBC’s linear election coverage saw modest declines since the previous presidential election cycle, yet another indication of where audiences are migrating to get their news. And the larger linear to digital shift is something that all three broadcast networks will be navigating in earnest over the next few years. (We spoke with Kim prior to the news that Comcast would be spinning off many of its cable outlets—including MSNBC and CNBC—into a separate company in 2025.) As social-friendly streaming spectacles like Netflix’s Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson bout have shown, those audiences are increasingly captivated by live events. Kim says that NBC’s emphasis on delivering live results via its TikTok feed kept younger viewers engaged—a marked change from 2020 when that audience wasn’t as tuned into the minute-by-minute horse race. Catherine Kim, NBC News executive vice president of editorial “There was heavy engagement around those results videos and race calls on TikTok,” Kim notes, adding that the NBC decision desk’s push to be first in making calls likely contributed to NBCNews.com’s increased search traffic throughout election night. “That reflects our careful planning around live data and sharing information early,” she explains. “The symphony of live results, live blog, live data and livestream and promoting our content early and often across platforms helped us win the night in so many ways.” Of course, effectively communicating those wins to advertisers is the next step in the broadcast news industry’s ongoing journey into the emerging digital frontier. Kim says she believes that buyers and retailers still want to associate with “credible, trusted, and quality content” even as the platforms delivering that content might change. And she’s aware that it’ll be up to her and the NBC digital team to stay on top of where audiences are migrating next. “There was a time when X was Twitter and Facebook was king,” she says with a laugh, reflecting on the not-too-distant social media past. “We’ve gotten pretty used to this idea that, in digital, what may be useful one day may not be useful the next in terms of building and reaching audiences. That’s just the nature of the beast.” Not for nothing, but NBC and the other broadcast networks might have to specifically rethink their TikTok strategy sooner rather than later. Earlier this year, the House passed legislation supporting a ban on the platform in the U.S. if its China-based owner declines to sell its share of the business. The deadline for that sale is Jan. 19, although Trump has signaled his opposition to the ban. In the meantime, Kim says that NBC News is keeping current on the platforms that are seeing spikes in engagement, including Bluesky, Reddit, and WhatsApp. Having lived through the “Facebook is king” years, she’s well-aware that there’s a trade-off with helping a third party company build up its digital profile—namely that there could very well come a time where you need them more than they need you. That’s what happened as Mark Zuckerberg steadily deemphasized news on Meta platforms, resulting in a number of media organizations taking substantial hits in traffic. Kim indicates that one of the ways she seeks to mitigate that risk is by ensuring that NBC News' digital platform is shipshape. “It’s critically important to have your own internet destination where you’re providing reliable, trustworthy, and credible news,” she notes. “And it’s also important to go out there onto social platforms and share reporting, because that’s where consumers are getting their news.” Looking ahead to 2025, Kim expects that NBC News Now and NBCNews.com will continue investing in stories where live coverage and raw data—two things that were plentiful on Election Night—can capture clicks and streams from an increasingly fractured audience. Besides the handover from President Joe Biden to President-elect Trump, Kim identifies sports, climate change and major weather events as other stories she expects to be covering in-depth. “How we share live information is something we’ll explore a little bit more,” Kim says, adding that more original video (particularly of the vertical variety) for both social platforms and NBCNews.com is another priority. “At the end of the day, it’s about how we provide journalism that’s credible, reliable, and trustworthy in ways that are accessible to the audience,” she continues. “That doesn’t mean dumbing it down—just always staying native to the experience of the platforms that we’re on.”

NBC

How NBC News' Election Night Digital Wins Forecast the Future of Broadcast News

The network saw firsthand how audiences are migrating to streaming and social media

Create Your Free Account

Registration Includes:

Ethan Alter

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications