ABC News. Both denied that the disappointing ratings performance of World News Tonight contributed to the decision. A 24-hour strike by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians disrupted ABC's coverage of 1998's November elections after talks between the union and ABC broke down. Several Democratic candidates denied interviews to support the union. None of the shake-ups helped Jennings retake the nightly ratings crown, but World News Tonight still offered stiff competition at second place. As the millennium approached, Jennings and the network started preparing for extensive retrospectives of the 20th century. The anchor teamed with former Life magazine journalist Todd Brewster to pen The Century, a 606-page book on 20th-century America. Designed as a companion book for ABC's upcoming documentary series of the same name, the book topped The New York Times Best Seller list in December 1998, a month after it debuted. On March 29, 1999, Jennings anchored the first installment of ABC's 12-hour miniseries, The Century; production on the monumental project started in 1990, and by the time it aired, it had cost the network US$25 million. Jennings also anchored a longer, 15-hour version, The Century: America's Time, on the History Channel in April 1999. On December 31, 1999, Jennings was on the air for 23 straight hours to anchor ABC 2000 Today, ABC's massive millennium eve special. An estimated 175 million people tuned into at least a portion of the program. Jennings's American prime-time audience, an estimated 18.6 million viewers, easily outpaced the millennium coverage of rival networks. Television critics praised the program, and described the anchor as "superhuman". Although production costs totaled a hefty $11 million (compared with $2 million each for NBC's and CBS's millennium projects), ABC managed to make a profit of $5 million. The success of the program, though, failed to transfer into any lasting change in the viewership of World News Tonight; ABC's evening newscast spent the first week of January as ratings leader, before dropping back to second place. With another presidential election taking place in 2000, Jennings had some more political reporting duties that year. On January 5, Jennings moderated the Democratic primary debate, held at the University of New Hampshire. He hosted the primetime news special The Dark Horizon: India, Pakistan, and the Bomb, which ABC broadcast on March 22, as then-President Clinton began his trip to the region. Jennings was the only American news anchor to