Nets Put Their Own Spin on Election
by Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn -- Multichannel News, 10/26/2008 8:00:00 PM
This season's hottest drama has arguably been the presidential race, and its big night is coming up Nov. 4, when the ballot counting begins. That has some cable networks — and not just the traditional news channels — offering a variety of election-themed programming.
“Let's face it, the whole nation's going to be watching television that night to see what happens,” said Comedy Central executive vice president of programming David Bernath, whose network is among the entertainment outlets airing election-related specials.
While 24-hour news outlets including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel can expect the lion's share of election night's cable-viewing audience, “the rising tide lifts all ships,” Bernath added.
Comedy Central will pit its faux-news series The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report against the real news networks live at 10 p.m. ET on election night, with an hour-long Indecision 2008 special. (Comedy's satirical strip, Chocolate News, will run post-election skits on Nov. 5.)
The Daily Show and Colbert did their first combined episode during the 2006 midterm elections, building on the success of the network's 16-year Indecision franchise, Bernath said. And throughout the months of this presidential campaign, The Daily Show and Colbert (both recent Emmy winners) have generated historic ratings highs on television and record hits online.
“They are at the top of the zeitgeist in terms of what's going on in the world today, and it's obviously at its height during an election year,” said Bernath. “So we knew this is where we were headed [for election night].”
TBS, on the other hand, was not as sure about Frank TV. The late-night sketch show, starring comic chameleon Frank Caliendo, airs at 11 p.m. ET on Tuesdays “and the fourth week of the show happened to be the election,” said Turner Entertainment Networks president Steve Koonin. “We thought maybe we can skip a week, or we can be topical … and since Frank does the pre-eminent President Bush, we all thought: Let's go have some fun with it.”
The half-hour show features Caliendo as outgoing two-term Bush, waxing sentimental on his last night in the White House.
“Our motto's always just to be goofy — we don't talk about policy,” Caliendo said.
Considering the show was filmed ahead of the current news cycle, the six sketches in the election-night episode had to remain evergreen.
“The only thing we don't hit on are the vice presidents because they weren't chosen [during production],” Caliendo said, “but if you did a Sarah Palin now, you'd only get compared to Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live… We don't need the comparison.”
As an alternative to news-focused networks, BET will continue its multiplatform Decision '08 coverage with live news and informational briefs on election day. Reports will begin in the morning from the polling booths and continue through the evening's concession and victory speeches, with primetime segment break updates beginning at 8 p.m. ET.
At 10 p.m. ET, The Truth With Jeff Johnson will air live, with analysis from political pundits, cultural critics, and a wish list of politically-involved stars such as Will.I.Am and Wyclef Jean.
“This is a huge event, as a network, with our demographic — it's definitely kept us extremely busy,” said BET senior vice president of current programming Keith Brown, adding that the 20-month campaign has re-energized the network's news operation.
When BET Nightly News ended in 2005, curtailing the network's news division, “there was a certain amount of time needed to find out how do we approach news,” said Brown. “Now we know better how to program for that audience.”
For Generation Y-targeted Current TV, it's all about viewer created content and interactive initiatives via Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging service, that will allow viewers to connect to the network with live news reports and commentary.
“It's much more of a participatory experience — like a hybrid of the Internet and television,” said Current president of programming David Neuman. “All of the punditry on the mainstream news networks is so insufferable … to hear people rattle off talking points. Here [our audience gets] to be engaged in a real conversation.”
The network began preparing for this election two years ago, said Neuman. Current has developed issue-related, audience-created short videos and “collective journalism” specials, in which a variety of young people can express their views on major topics from immigration to Iraq.
“It would have been impossible for us to [ignore] this,” said Neuman. “We are, by definition, a reflection of our audience and they were taking us in this direction early on.”
And it's no surprise that entertainment networks have an interest in this campaign, he said. “If you look at the polls, [Democratic candidate Barack] Obama has a commanding lead among young adults,” said Neuman. “Media outlets have to pay attention because the lead character in this drama appeals to young viewers.”
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