Smart Streaming. Angry Screaming. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

In political terms Tuesday’s elections – especially the Virginia races – will be analyzed for weeks and even months as both referenda on Joe Biden‘s presidency to date, as bellwether for the fortunes of the Democrats and Republicans in the short term on key legislative agendas, and of course as harbingers of the midterm elections in 2022.

In political media terms, the additional layer is viewing yesterday’s big contests as a test-run on covering all of those above items. And in that regard NBC News Now and the anchor team of Chuck Todd and Kristen Welker got a big of a leg up on 2022 with their streaming coverage.

NBC News on Wednesday reports that their real time streaming coverage of the Nov. 2 elections outperformed competitors on YouTube. In total, NBC News Digital hit almost 20 million views of election content across their platforms during election coverage, and racked about a million hours watched on the night.

Todd and Welker were also on the live on air broadcast, anchored primarily by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, popping in to provide analysis.

They hit outside of streaming in another way, too, with Chuck Todd getting play for pointing out that they “had a few McAuliffe surrogates that we expected to be on our air that are suddenly not available,” as the tide continued to turn against that campaign.

Every news outfit in America is diving into streaming, offering content and exclusives to entice subscribers. But live streaming political coverage of a major event is going to be more important in 2022 and the post-covid era in general than ever before.

NBC News Now lead with two of their biggest names for their live coverage and that may be what paid off.

It will be months before anyone is a clear leader in streaming, live politics coverage. But for this November 2nd, Todd and Welker were obviously some breakout stars.

Dan Bongino has been off the air for weeks as he carries out an intense feud with the syndicator of his radio show. He has stated this is in protest of a vaccine mandate at Cumulus/Westwood One. But in somewhat of a break from the norm, his own fellow conservatives in media think there’s a more prosaic and basic motive at play.

Mediaite’s Colby Hall notes in his exclusive Wednesday that the rumor mill on the right is sour on Bongino’s claimed righteous exile. Bongino is not currently hosting his widely-syndicated show, and the radio stations that carry him are left to air re-runs of past programs that are by definition pretty stale.

Full vaccinated Bongino has been off the air, and Cumulus has been airing re-runs of the show and said in a statement that the host is “taking a well-deserved vacation.” Bongino has continued to host his podcast.

The timing raises questions, not least of which is why he’d be off-air in defense of potential firings for unvaccinated colleagues when the situation had already come to a head before his announcement.

“A source with direct knowledge of the company’s policy revealed to Mediaite that anyone on the chopping block for refusing to get the vaccine was already fired,” writes Hall. “So the notion that Bongino is taking a principled stand against mandates as a means of protecting the freedom of his colleagues doesn’t make much sense.”

What might make more sense is that Bongino is unhappy with his contract and is bucking for the company to break it, thus freeing him. And since Westwood also hosts his more lucrative podcast – from which he’s taken no leave of absence – one wonders his commttment to the protest against their policies.

Colby Hall’s original reporting starts here, and since it went live there are major new developments. But it should go without saying that when even those with whom you are claiming common cause cast aspersions on your sincerity, you’re not having a winning media moment.