On the Wednesday January 9 NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams admitted that John McCain "didn't get all the attention he deserved" during his network's coverage of the New Hampshire primary, as the NBC anchor read a viewer email which complained that "all the air time and talk was directed to the Democrats, and nothing of any substance was shared about the Republican candidates." Williams introduced the email: "A viewer from Richmond correctly noted John McCain didn't get all the attention he deserved in last night's victory."
The NBC host then read the message in which the unidentified viewer sarcastically asked if NBC knew that "there are two political parties." The message read:
I was disappointed in your coverage of the New Hampshire primary last evening. You do know that there are two political parties, don't you? All the air time and talk was directed to the Democrats, and nothing of any substance was shared about the Republican candidates. As a voter who hasn't yet decided how to vote, it would have been nice to hear from both sides. What ever happened to equal time?
Williams was presumably referring to the NBC broadcast network's coverage which consisted of relatively short interruptions of NBC's regular primetime programming. But notably, MSNBC's election night team mocked and laughed at McCain's delivery charging that he looked down too much as he read his speech, and that "it looked like every advisor that he'd ever had had given him one paragraph."