The broadcast television networks rebuffed the White House’s request for a prime-time platform to tout surpassing its enrollment goal for health insurance coverage, according to Buzzfeed.

The White House had “sought valuable prime-time air for a rare, impromptu Tuesday night address” to spotlight its Affordable Care Act achievement, but “network officials refused to make the kind of accommodation they did previously for the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed,” the report indicated.

Several sources told the publication that the Obama administration had wanted to “emphasize a bright moment following the challenging rollout and, more important, to try to reintroduce the country to a law that remains unpopular.”

Instead, President Obama delivered midday remarks in a Rose Garden address -- preempting significantly less popular daytime programming.

In his remarks, Obama declared “the Affordable Care Act is here to stay” and that the debate about the law was effectively over. He added that “as messy as it’s been sometimes, as contentious as it's been sometimes, it’s progress.” Thanks to a last-minute surge, enrollments totaled 7.1 million, easily topping the administration’s goal of 6 million (which had been downsized from 7 million after the troubled debut of HealthCare.gov).

The White House seldom requests prime-time broadcast TV time outside of the State of the Union address or major national events.