Editorial: It's time to pool national political coverage

This has bugged me since I was a kid. I wanted to watch Star Trek, but nooooo... the President had to pre-empt my favorite show. And to make matters even worse, he was on every other channel as well.

I have never, ever understood why every major network has to carry the same programming, even if it is important. Oh, I understand the thinking that each network wants its anchor and "experts" to provide analysis of what has just been said. But times have changed. This may be the only holdover from the golden days of television.

George W. Bush ticked off the networks when he would speak on Thursday nights, thereby blowing out an hour's worth of the most pricey commercials. And now Obama is getting flak from the networks since he's making a habit of regular prime time speeches. Since these are all commercial-free, every network carrying a speech loses millions. And every local station takes a major hit as well. The local avails for a hit show can bring in a small fortune.

And in this economy, it doesn't make sense to lose that revenue.

So here's my solution. It's time for the networks to cover Presidential speeches on a rotation basis. And before you network people start firing emails at me and saying, "This is important. We have to cover it," please listen to part two of my plan:

Each network will have a representative provide analysis for the pool feed.

So here's the deal. The President speaks, and the speech is carried on one network. Then we get a roundtable discussion with Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric and Brit Hume. Trust me, that would be a heck of a lot more entertaining than what we have now. The stations that aren't running the speech run a crawl that the speech is available on the network carrying it.

The viewers who want to watch this can do so. Those who want entertainment, can find their regular shows on the networks not carrying the speech. Instead of every network and all its affiliates taking a financial hit, all but one avoid it. But since they're taking turns, they cut their annual losses by 75 percent, as do their affiliates. The important speeches and issues are still covered, and, since this is a free country, those who don't want to watch have other choices. It will save the networks and affiliates a ton of money.

Hey, they rotated the moderators for the Presidential debates and it worked out just fine. What's the difference here?

Trust me, this will work. The viewers won't complain, stations and networks will save money.

And maybe some jobs in the process.