"Presidents rarely make speeches during prime TV viewing hours, and typically only do so to address a national crises or matter of exceptional urgency."

"The networks, in turn, typically carry presidential speeches when the White House requests the time and after previewing the president’s remarks. However, they have passed on speeches that were part of campaign rallies or events, or when the subject was deemed insufficiently important or newsworthy.... People involved in negotiations over Thursday’s address said the networks deemed Biden’s remarks as 'political' in nature and therefore decided not to televise it. These people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions, cited the speech’s criticism of Trump — Biden’s possible political opponent in 2024 — and its timing two months before the midterm elections... The non-coverage stands in contrast to the three networks’ decision in June to preempt their entertainment programs to air the first hearing of the House select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot...."

 
Writes Paul Farhi in "As Biden warned about democracy’s collapse, TV networks aired reruns/While broadcasters typically air a prime-time address by the president, they determined that this speech was more ‘political’ than newsworthy for live coverage" (Washington Post).

All 3 networks judged it too political to deserve live coverage in prime time? And yet the Marines were there, attesting to its nonpolitical nature!  

Farhi supplies this hilarious tweet from polisci prof Brendan Nyhan: "'The networks refusing to cover Biden’s speech (presumably because it was going to be critical of Trump and/or not newsworthy enough) is precisely the problem' confronting democracy." No, it's precisely the separation of government and journalism we need in a healthy democracy.