David Carr wants you to be worried about what will happen after November 4th. Not because of anything as obvious and tacky as the election, gawd no, but because after the final vote is tallied and the last pregnant chad is disputed, who will buy up all the local advertising?
See, Barack Obama has spent an unheard of $250 mill on ads this campaign, and now that the race is coming to a close, he's basically just giving away the money to the stations in the form of those 30-minute ads coming up. And while these ads are taking up air-time, they effectively push other ads, like car commercials, bank commercials, etc, out of the line-up.
Which you know, is great when none of those client can afford to pay for time anymore. But what happens when the money train grounds to a halt?
We've already mentioned how weird it is that a station like Fox News would object to having their broadcasters appear for a half of second in one of John McCain's political ads, or MSNBC for Obama's. So far, Fox, CBS, and NBC have all petitioned YouTube to remove videos that feature any of their on-air talent, even if the broadcasters themselves are openly for one of the candidates. These stations petition YouTube to take down any video ads that feature Katie Couric, Major Garrett, or Keith Olbermann, and YouTube so far has been prompt about the removal.
Okay, sure, that makes sense because technically it's the networks that own the talent's image, and they can't risk ratings damage by coming out in favor of a certain candidate, even if it is obvious to everyone in the world which way MSNBC and Fox staffers are likely to vote. Fine.
But now John McCain has the support of a digital advocacy group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which agrees that super-short segments of news footage falls under the fair use doctrine. A grateful but befuddled McCain replies, "A what advocacy group?"
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BIG NEWS you guys: President Barack Obama bought up a half an hour of national airtime on CBS and NBC to address U.S. voters less than a week before elections:
Obama's theme is not just change but unity, so he's appealing to the whole nation rather than a handful of tossup states," Sabato said. "He wants to win the popular vote by a good margin, which will enable him to govern."
And he's got the cash for it.
"This is another indication, if there needs to be any more, that Barack Obama's got more money than [available] television time to buy," said Evan Tracey, COO of the Campaign Media Analysis Group in Arlington, Va.
Which is good news, because the shows Obama will be bumping that evening will be Gary Unmarried and Knight Rider on CBS and NBC respectively. And since no one watches Knight Rider unless they are hardcore Will Arnett fans, and Gary Unmarried just sounds like a made-up show, it would behoove the Democratic campaign to just buy up the 8 pm Wednesday night slots every week until the election. At least it's a better idea than just spending all your monopoly money for a whole Obama channel on the Dish Network that no one watches.
