By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Former NBC News anchor Brian Williams will be working again on election night, anchoring a live special with results and analysis to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Amazon announced the plans on Thursday, saying the election night streamcast will begin at 5 p.m. Eastern, with no end time given. His longtime NBC colleague, Jonathan Wald, will be executive producer.
An election night telecast is a new frontier for a big streaming service, one that doesn’t have its own news operation. Prime Video was scant on details in a news release, saying the show will have results from third-party news sources and a variety of as-yet unnamed guests to talk about them.
Williams and Wald were not immediately available, according to Amazon.
As anchor of “NBC Nightly News” from 2004 to 2015, Williams led the network’s election night coverage. He later went to work at MSNBC as anchor and host of his own late-night news program, which he left in 2021.
“After 41 years in the business โ from local news to network shows to cable news โ this feels like the next big thing,” Williams said. “And the global marketplace of
Amazon is a natural home for this first-of-its-kind venture. Together we will follow the storyline on election night wherever it leads us.”
Amazon said this is a one-night only event for the service and Williams.
“Blade Runner 2049” producers sue Elon Musk and Tesla over AI image at robotaxi event
A film production company that helped make "Blade Runner 2049" has sued Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk for using an AI-generated image resembling a scene from the science fiction movie to market Tesla's new robotaxis.
Alcon Entertainment said it refused all permissions but Tesla allegedly used artificial intelligence to "do it all anyway" when the carmaker unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi on Oct. 10 during a live-streamed event at a Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California.
After pulling up to the stage in one of the company's "Cybercabs," Musk gave a speech that included a brief reference to the movie franchise. As he spoke, a screen showed an image of a man in a long coat looking over an orange-tinted ruined city. Alcon claims it resembles a key scene in which star Ryan Gosling arrives by "quasi-sentient flying car" to an abandoned Las Vegas.
"I love Blade Runner, but I don't know if we want that future," Musk said. "I think we want that duster he's wearing, but not the bleak apocalypse."
A copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Alcon this week in a Southern California federal court alleges that defendants had asked permission to use images from the movie "mere hours" before the event but Alcon "refused all permissions and adamantly objected."
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Alcon is also suing Warner Bros, the movie's distributor that hosted Musk's robotaxi event. Warner Bros. Discovery didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alcon, which is working on a spinoff "Blade Runner 2099" series for Amazon, said it is in talks with automakers about brand collaborations but has avoided affiliating with Tesla because of Musk's "extreme political and social views" and... Read More