Brian Williams and Amazon are asking election night information-seekers to receive a leap of belief with them

Let no one accuse Brian Williams of trying to lower expectations a week before his election night special coverage on Amazon Prime Video.

“This will be the first — if you’ll forgive the phrase — recent product introduction in the election night space since color television,” the former NBC information anchor said shortly after landing in Los Angeles, near where Amazon is building a set for him at its massive recent studio.

Amazon is the pioneer streaming service to compete in live information with television on its biggest night, a presidential election. And its headliner is the quintessential TV guy, one who told the globe about the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump from Rockefeller Center for NBC information.

Williams, 65, is certainly well known, but he’s asking potential viewers to receive a leap of belief. Amazon has no track record in the election space and, unlike NBC, CNN, Fox information and others who will cover the results on Nov. 5, has no information division behind it. Williams said he and his executive producer, a fellow former NBC hand Jonathan Wald, have “built a temporary, one-night information division over the history 60 days.”

They have contracted with The Associated Press for video and Reuters for results data, and hired a stable of commentators and journalists to work that night. They include some of Williams’ frequent guests from when he hosted “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC, including political consultants James Carville, Mike Murphy and writer-comedian Baratunde Thurston.

Former Fox information anchor Shepard Smith will be stationed at Democrat Kamala Harris’ election night headquarters, with Tara Palmeri of Puck at Republican Trump’s. Others on their one-night staff include historian Douglas Brinkley, former “The View” co-host Abby Huntsman, the Washington Post’s Jackie Alemany, ex-CNN and ABC information reporter Jessica Yellin and former U.S. Rep Tim Ryan of Ohio. Reporters from Axios, Politico and Puck will also be working for the Amazon throng, Wald said.

In many respects, it will be like a familiar election night television newscast — acceptance speeches aired, pundits opining. Amazon won’t have its own selection desk, but the broadcast will discuss when other information organizations call person states. “All viewpoints will be represented,” Williams said. “We are striving to cover it straight with minimal drama.”

“Now that the ‘magic walls’ have been around for a few cycles, we get it, we comprehend it,” he said. “So we’ll just trot out a few recent things that viewers haven’t seen before. There is a formula to election night. We’re not going to shatter that.”

They’ll operate from the giant former MGM soundstage, where “The Wizard of Oz” and countless other productions originated, bought by Amazon and tricked out with the latest gadgetry.

“It is traditional in the sense that you have a traditionalist in Brian Williams,” Wald said. “But everything else about it, from where it is on and how we are presenting things, is recent.”

Wald promises a broadcast that he says will seem more streamlined, less cluttered, than its rivals. A typical information division often brings everyone it has available into its election night coverage, and often it feels that way.

Even before this occurrence, Amazon founder and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos has played a role in the election. Also the owner of The Washington Post, Bezos was instrumental in the newspaper’s selection announced Friday not to endorse either Harris or Trump, causing an uprising among many at the newspaper.

Williams anchored “NBC Nightly information,” then the top-rated evening newscast, from 2004 to 2015, losing that job after embellishing his role in war coverage. Given a second chance, he hosted “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC from 2016 until signing off in December 2021.

He’s kept a low profile ever since, enjoying a grandson born just days before leaving MSNBC, and volunteer firefighting down at the Jersey Shore until Amazon came calling.

“This is the first thing that really made my toe tap,” he said. “This got some ancient competitive juices flowing — emphasis on ancient. It is a weird place to be because you recognize me well enough to recognize there was no more bullish broadcaster than I was. I completely believed in over-the-air broadcast information, and cable.”

Yet every television executive he’s talked to tells him that streaming represents the upcoming, if not the now. “This feels like a chance to get on a train that is leaving the station,” said Williams, who spoke by phone Sunday from an airport in Los Angeles.

The election night newscast will commence at 5 p.m. Eastern period on Nov. 5. It will be available for free to anyone with a device who logs on to amazon.com: no subscription or log-on will be essential.

Williams is prepared for the possibility that the ultimate mystery — who’s going to be the next president — will not be known by the period he has to sign off. That will probably be about 10 hours after he starts provide or receive some period. “A lot of of excellent vigor drinks have arrive out in the last couple of years,” he joked.

Williams said he has no concept what this means for himself, or Amazon, after Nov. 5.

“It’s a large undertaking and they’re taking a large swing with this,” he said. “All I recognize is my part in it, and that’s one night. I don’t recognize if we’re going to look back on this as a first for Amazon or as an experiment for Amazon. I don’t recognize. That’s up to them.”

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. pursue him at http://x.com/dbauder.