prepositions - US news articles missing out "on" when referring to a day


When watching US television news or reading US news articles there is this affectation where instead of saying:



"Spotify music-streaming service to launch in U.S. on Thursday" (CNN)



or



"Leading credit rating agency Moody's said on Wednesday that the U.S. government's impeccable credit..." (Fox)



The on preposition is missed out.


Is this just a peculiar US journalistic "news speak" shortcut or do American non-journalist writers write this way too?



Answer



This is a common elision in US English, yes, though very rarely in British English. It also seems to be done a lot by French speakers who have learnt English, because this elision is always done in French (or rather, it's always been the case in French that one refers to a day simply by saying the day, rather than on the day); I see this done a lot on the France 24 news channel, even by those newsreaders with a British accent.


It is also commonly done with months, eg.



The festival is happening June, and is going to be very popular.



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