Barry Diller, one of the biggest execs in Hollywood, offered to create a network that would ONLY have political advertising. Ban it on every other TV outlet. That way, we wouldn’t be interrupted by the misleading hype and PR every candidate’s consultant dreams up. Make watching political ads a choice, because zapping them with a remote will get pretty tiring (I only watch about 5 hrs of TV a week, so I imagine people who watch more get really irritated).
How about an all-political ad network on TV so cable the airways are free of them?
Barry Diller, one of the biggest execs in Hollywood, offered to create a network that would ONLY have political advertising. Ban it on every other TV outlet. That way, we wouldn’t be interrupted by the misleading hype and PR every candidate’s consultant dreams up. Make watching political ads a choice, because zapping them with a remote will get pretty tiring (I only watch about 5 hrs of TV a week, so I imagine people who watch more get really irritated).
3 Responses
June 18th, 2009 at 4:04 am
If this guy is a Hollywood exec, I’m sure he’ll be unemployed tomorrow.
TV networks are there for one thing - money. Ads bring money. Audience brings ads. Programs bring audience. Therefore mix programs and ads so people are forced to expose themselves to ads.
TV networks are not silly enough to throw their revenue stream to this guy’s channel and the pollies aren’t going to pay for ads on a channel with no audience.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:33 am
i’d vote for it.
June 20th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
It sounds like a nice idea, but a fundamental component of television advertising is the captive audience - which is why they broadcast stuff in between the commercials to keep you interested. (Mr. Diller will have to craft a revolutionary new business model if he’s selling ads but offering no programming.) Ban it on every other TV outlet? As in, making it against the law? Lotsa luck– we’re talking about politicians after all, who’re pretty sharp at putting the law and the constitution on their side, especially on things like freedom of speech. Nope; putting them all on a single channel means most everyone’ll tune them out, which means the advertisers won’t want to run ads, which means a bankrupt network. (The ads, however, will probably go merrily on in other places.)