Conde sees mainstream media’s comeback as trust in news hits low

Mainstream news is trying to recover at the exact moment Americans have lost faith in it. Gallup’s October 2025 polling showed only 28% of adults had a great deal or fair amount of trust in newspapers, television and radio, with Republican confidence sinking to 8%. Cesar Conde, who runs NBCUniversal News Group, is betting that the audience has not disappeared so much as migrated, and that established brands can win it back if they adapt fast enough.

Conde has framed that case with a simple forecast: “the pendulum will eventually swing back” to mainstream media brands. That optimism rests on scale NBCUniversal still believes it can defend. The company says Conde oversees NBC News, NBC News NOW, Telemundo Enterprises and NBCUniversal Local, reaching about five in 10 American adults each month across broadcast, streaming and digital platforms. NBCUniversal also says NBC News NOW is the fastest-growing streaming news network in the United States, while NBC News has become the nation’s number one digital news organization after heavy investment in digital and streaming.

But the market Conde is trying to hold together is fragmenting around him. The Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report found that engagement with television, print and news websites kept falling as reliance on social media, video platforms, online aggregators and AI chatbots grew. Its separate 2025 generative AI report found a wide comfort gap: only 12% of respondents were comfortable with fully AI-generated news, compared with 62% for entirely human-made content. That leaves legacy outlets with a narrow opening, but also a warning: audiences may want speed and convenience, yet they still associate trust with human judgment.

NBC has tried to answer that directly. In November 2025, the company launched a Reporting for America campaign built around nationwide research that said audiences want reliable information and respectful dialogue. The next step is operational, not cosmetic. NBC News NOW is set to expand to 14 hours of weekday live programming in 2026, a sign that NBC is leaning into live, continuous coverage rather than surrendering ground to the faster, rougher rhythms of social video.

Conde’s credibility test is not abstract. In March 2024, NBC News dropped Ronna McDaniel as a contributor after internal backlash, and Conde apologized to staff, saying he took full responsibility for the hiring decision. The episode exposed the tension between broadening perspectives and preserving newsroom trust. Variety said Conde had his hands full during the presidential election year, and Fast Company noted NBC Nightly News still drew about 6.5 million viewers in 2024, proof that legacy reach remains meaningful even as attention fractures. For Conde, the comeback story will depend less on nostalgia than on whether NBC can prove, every day, that mainstream news can still be both wide and worth believing.