Cable News Drops Routine, Gives Egypt The Front Burner Treatment

The tension and bloodshed in Egypt has quickly pushed its way to the very top of cable newscasts, with more and more shows ditching standard formats in favor of wall-to-wall coverage of the events unfolding in the streets of Cairo and other cities. At Fox, in a testament both to the story’s importance–and the line drawn between opinion hosts and news anchors–Glenn Beck was pre-empted at 5 p.m. for live Egypt coverage anchored by Shepard Smith.

On MSNBC, the standard political format of Chris Matthews‘ Hardball was dropped, and the show carried the speech by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak live, as did Fox and CNN.

CNN will soon have four reporting teams in Egypt (as soon as Ivan Watson lands in country to join the three correspondent teams already in place and working double-digit hours, from before dawn to primetime), in addition to a fleet of individuals sending in iReport video of the uprising.

The network’s also completely reworked its national and international broadcast plans. CNN and CNN International have been in simulcast mode since mid morning Friday, and Piers Morgan Tonight will be live tonight–a first for the brand new show–and carried on both networks as usual as well as AC360.

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