When a President Speaks After Prime Time, Who Listens?

Good evening! I’m in Chicago, where we’re covering the Democrats’ prime-time problem, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s selfie-taking strategy and a Republican’s view of the proceedings here. My colleague Michael Grynbaum, who covers media, starts us off. — Jess Bidgood

Democrats are headed into their second night of convention programming with lofty goals: Persuade the persuadables. Inspire the masses. And, please, just try to do it all on time.

After Monday night’s telecast stretched well past midnight on the East Coast — a delay that organizers blamed on “raucous applause” from the crowd — several speakers were contacted and instructed to shorten their prepared remarks. And Tuesday’s proceedings began at 5:30 sharp, local time.

If those changes result in a tighter show, it won’t matter for President Biden, whose valedictory speech on Monday began a few minutes before 11:30 p.m. Eastern and ended in the wee hours. All of which prompted a question bouncing around Chicago on Tuesday: Does it matter if a president speaks in prime time?

Biden’s late-night appearance was not by design. Organizers had hoped his big moment would start 40 minutes earlier, within the traditional bounds of television’s most watched hours between 8 and 11 p.m. — and before millions of voters in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania went to bed.

In fact, Democratic officials went to great lengths to ensure Biden did not speak even later, axing a planned performance by the singer James Taylor and a lavishly produced video tribute to the departing president.

When I observed on X last night that the delayed start might reduce the size of Biden’s live TV audience, I heard from many commenters who pointed out that millions of Americans live in other time zones, and that