|
Kim Mitchell
To say that the American public is fed up with politics is a gross understatement. The two current Oval Office shoo-ins have about as much personal appeal and conviction as a pair of wet socks. What's more, the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions promise to be as instructional and compelling as a Thighmaster infomercial.
Leave it to veteran ABC reporter Sam Donaldson to spell it out. "The conventions no longer represent anything that's newsworthy," he said at the TV Critics Association tour in Pasadena last week. "I don't think we have an obligation to carry a commercial of the two political parties simply because they would like us to."
I'm with Sam. Why should anyone tune in to these dog-and-pony shows? Long gone are the days when half-drunken state delegates would cast votes late into the night, and, at least for a bit, there was some palpable excitement regarding the outcome.
This trend of viewer apathy certainly isn't lost on the broadcast networks' news divisions. As party convention ratings have plummeted over the years, the networks have tapered back their coverage at a steady clip. Wisely, they prefer to shovel convention coverage over to their 24-hour cable news outlets.
The upcoming round of conventions has been slightly more newsworthy, but not in the typical sense. Unfortunately for the broadcast networks, their convention coverage strategies were announced during the summer TV Critics Tour.
ABC, for one, originally planned to report on the opening nights of each convention for 20 minutes during halftime of July 31 and Aug. 14 pre-season NFL games. Meanwhile, both NBC and CBS were similarly dragging their feet about devoting primetime to convention coverage.
Aghast, critics quickly retired to their keyboards to lambast ABC as un-American for scheduling football over politics. Even more insulting, some critics said, was the fact that the conventions were being relegated to cable news networks.
As each broadcast network revealed its convention coverage plans, TV critics sputtered with disgust, noting that Aug. 14 is the night President Bill Clinton is set to give the nation his farewell speech. How dare the broadcasters dishonor the commander-in-chief?
Yes. Poor Bubba. A man who has skated sex scandals, skirted impeachment and buffered the widely-hailed news that he calls a very personal part of his anatomy "Little Willy" now must face the humiliation of being snubbed by the broadcast networks. When does it all end?
Soon, we hope.
So, amid accusations of bad citizenship, ABC said last week it'll broaden its convention coverage. This means ABC will move up the July 31 New England Patriots/San Francisco 49ers game in order to televise the opening night of the Republican National Convention. It will also reschedule an Aug. 14 NFL contest in order to cover the opening night of the Democratic confab.
So who gets the shaft here? Mostly football fans such as myself, who are curious to see how Dennis Miller partners with Al Michaels and Dan Fouts. We'll be the ones forced to weasel out of work early and drive at breakneck speeds through rush hour traffic to make it home for that 5 p.m. (MT) kickoff.
Then there's the implied insult to cable news outlets. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel plan to devote huge chunks of their primetime schedule to the conventions. What's up with the inference that cable news outlets are second rate? Please. Get real.
CNN alone vows to offer 100 hours of mind-numbing convention coverage. The network is confident enough about the strategy that it will charge advertisers about 20% more for primetime play during the upcoming conventions.
After all, more than one million households tuned in to watch CNN's Super Tuesday primary results in March, about double the network's average household share.
And stop with all the hand-wringing over the conventions being ghettoized on cable TV. Last I checked, CNN is in 72.4 million homes, while MSNBC weighs in at about 40 million homes and Fox News counts 42 million. And don't forget CSPAN, which reaches 77 million homes.
Between cable and DBS, all these networks are easily accessible, and their expertise and coverage will be as good, if not better, than the broadcasters. People who want convention coverage can find plenty of it.
And for the rest of us ... well, I don't want to go on a rant here, but I think that after the NFL games end, I'll switch off the TV and find something else to do. I can always read about Clinton's adieu in the morning papers, after I read the critics' reviews of Miller.
Back to this issue
|
