Amazon Trying To Break Into News Industry By Reportedly Signing Brian Williams To Lead Election Coverage

Amazon's quest for a total takeover of the American marketplace continues, this time with a foray into the news industry.

Puck News reported on Saturday that Amazon has hired former NBC News anchor Brian Williams to host election night coverage on Prime Video. Amazon aims to "have a non-partisan discussion of that evening’s events" and will stream the broadcast from Amazon MGM Studios in Los Angeles, the report details.

Williams was the lead anchor for NBC News for more than two decades but was demoted in 2015 after he was caught falsifying details about his coverage of the Iraq war. 

The anchor lied about riding in an Army aircraft when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The network ultimately reassigned him to MSNBC, on which he hosted "The 11th Hour" until 2021.

CNN was interested in signing Williams for the now-defunct CNN+ streaming service, which lasted only a few weeks.

Brian Williams, Anchor, "The 11th Hour with Brian Williams" on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 from New York. (Photo by: Heidi Gutman/MSNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

With a market cap of just under $2 trillion, Amazon has the resources to make a splash in the news industry. Amazon Prime has already established itself as a true player in the sports wars with the additions of the NFL's Thursday Night Football, the NBA, Yankees, and PBC Boxing.

And the number of Americans turning to streaming for their news is rising steadily.

"Amazon would test these waters as traditional players like NBC News, CNN, CBS News, Fox News Channel and ABC News are still experimenting with new ways to appeal to younger audiences who often prefer screens other than those that belong to a TV set to get news and information," wrote Brian Steinberg of Variety. 

According to the Pew Research Center, approximately 86 percent of U.S. adults say they "sometimes get news" from a smartphone, computer, or tablet. Just over 57 percent of that group say "they do so often." The number of Americans who say they "often get news from TV" remains at 33 percent.

Granted, with the success and volume of news-oriented podcasts, there's a question of whether there's an appetite for traditional newscasts on a streaming service.

Amazon might be better off growing its podcast network than trying to recreate television news. Last month, Amazon signed Travis and Jason Kelce to a $100 million deal to exclusively license the "‘New Heights" podcast under its Wondery umbrella.

Secondly, Amazon does not plan to introduce Williams and its news coverage until election night. Thereby, Amazon is asking viewers to abandon familiar news networks on the biggest news night of the year for a streaming service that has never produced a minute of news coverage.

Prime should have tried to establish its news coverage heading into the election by airing even just weekly newscasts.

So, don't expect Amazon Prime to be all that competitive with the leading news networks on election night. Fox News, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and ABC will still lead the way.

Unless, of course, Brian Williams reveals that he was in the lab when Chinese virologists created the COVID-19 virus and saw it all go down.