It’s that time of year
again when those
quadrennial events
known as the national
political conventions
take place. Over the
past several decades
the conventions have
morphed into heavily
scripted advertisements,
and actual “news”
comes from increasingly rare unscripted
moments. Broadcasters and other news
organizations have rightly assessed the relevance
of these events and have tailored
(and cut back) their coverage accordingly.
In this issue of TV Technology, we sidestep
the content of the conventions and focus
on how newscasters will stay in communication
in an increasingly crowded RF environment
(one that has been even more
affected by the reduction in wireless spectrum
availability since 2008). That’s the
technology of TV.
I’d like to focus this particular screed on
what is the bane of modern day political
campaigns: the negative political ad. Yes,
I know they’ve been around forever and
the intensity and truthfulness of such ads
have ebbed and flowed based on our country’s
prevailing mood at the time; but this
year promises an avalanche of negative ads
the likes we have never seen, fueled by an
evenly divided electorate and the Supreme
Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision.
Apart from the campaign staffs, ad agencies
and the Association of Voiceover Professionals,
the only party I can think of that
actually likes these ads is us—broadcasters,
who will be the biggest financial beneficiaries of the onslaught. And with the
FCC’s new rules requiring broadcasters to
make political ad transactions public, the
numbers show how influential our industry
remains in today’s political campaigns.
In the first week of August alone, according
to a local Washington newspaper, one
super PAC spent nearly $1 million at three
local TV stations (Virginia being one of a
handful of swing states where most of the
political campaign dollars will be spent).
Some politicians are exploring different
avenues to get their message across. Take
Linda Lingle, a Republican running for the
U.S. Senate in Hawaii, for example. According
to the New York Times, Ms. Lingle has
created her own cable station, in which
every minute of programming is devoted
to convincing Hawaiians to vote for her.
“Linglevision,” which is available to about
245,000 homes in the state, consists of political
speeches, ads, video issue papers and
testimonials.
According to estimates from Borrell
Associates,Inc., which tracks local TV and
online advertising, political parties and outside
groups could spend up to $6.5 billion
on television and cable ads for federal and
state elections in 2012. Polls show that less
than 10 percent of the voters are identified
as “undecided”—and they are the target of
these ads. Never before is so much money
being spent to change the minds of such
a small percentage of the American public.
Anticipating what could be an unprecedented
blitz of campaign spending, some
political pundits are already questioning
whether it will make much of a difference.
As for our industry, it’s a double-edged
sword. Sure, the ad money is great, but do
we risk turning off viewers fed up with the
negativity? Personally speaking, as a Virginia
resident and target of these ads, I cringe
when I see them during the local broadcasts
and am increasingly changing the
channel when they come on. How many
other viewers feel this way?