Today could be even bigger than Super Duper.
“It’s going to be huge,” CNN president Jonathan Klein said by phone Monday. “The American voters can’t wait. We haven’t seen an election like this in our lifetime.”
With no incumbent and unusually high stakes, it’s no wonder campaign coverage has emerged as this season’s best primetime drama.
People who never voted or who never thought their vote mattered are tuning in and the anchors do their best to keep the tone breathless.
If you follow coverage of the 2008 election season — and the ratings prove more of us are doing so than usual — you know the media have been accused of getting ahead of unfolding events.
A case could be made that the media determined that John Edwards and then Hillary Clinton were not viable candidates. The line between setting the agenda and reporting blurs when viewers can’t tell the pundits from the reporters.
“We try hard not to create story lines, not to fan the flames of story lines because we like the drama. The greatest fear is you wake up Wednesday morning and were all wrong about what would happen Tuesday night,” CNN’s Klein said.
By now, if you watch enough 24- hour cable news, you also are accustomed to hearing media critiques of the media. The news cycle is so short, the self-awareness so great and the reflex to analyze so automatic, it’s not unusual to hear the media creating a drumbeat about the media drumbeat, blaming itself as it blathers.
Should Hillary quit? Is it time to measure the drapes for the Barack Obama White House? It’s easy to get ahead of the game when cable needs to fill empty hours.
The suspense goes well beyond who’s going to be president. Is Keith Olbermann going to foam at the mouth before Chris Matthews bursts a vein, or will Tim Russert jump out of his chair at Brian Williams first? Will Bill O’Reilly get over his debate fatigue? And how will “Saturday Night Live” spoof them this weekend?
This campaign season is so hot, the “SNL” parodies are slightly less bizarre than the original clips.
So hot, last Tuesday’s debate drew 7.8 million viewers on MSNBC, the most for any program in the network’s history. (MSNBC’s previous record was 3.7 million viewers at the start of the Iraq war.)
So hot, the California primary debate set the record for CNN, with 8.3 million viewers.
In the horse race so far, CNN is on a roll. It defeated the Fox News Channel in primetime in February in the key 25-54 demographic, though Fox held onto its lead in total viewers in both primetime and throughout the day, according to Nielsen Media Research. MSNBC made gains, but continues to lag behind the other cable news channels.
“We’re doing more about the candidates and less about us,” said CNN’s Klein. “We’re not creating a cult of personality around our people . . . who really are the best team in television,” he said, reflexively pushing the network’s personalities.
The phenomenal ratings have allowed CNN to expose more younger viewers to its younger personalities: Anderson Cooper is No. 1 in cable news, even on non-debate or primary nights.
This year everyone’s a political junkie. The must-see primary coverage is drawing bigger audiences than predicted, and chalking up hefty advertising purchases by the campaigns.
Nielsen reported last week that Obama is the leading advertiser in advance of today’s Ohio and Texas primaries. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 24, Obama, Clinton and John McCain placed 6,499 television spots in Ohio; Obama and Clinton placed 11,150 TV spots in Texas.
Political ad spending represents a windfall for broadcasters. One study predicts spending on all 2008 political advertising will reach $3 billion.
And, yes, the substantive ads cost the same as the negative ones.
Joanne Ostrow’s column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it incorrectly reported that MSNBC had beaten Fox News Channel in the February ratings. In addition, it should have been more specific and stated that CNN beat Fox News Channel only in prime-time ratings in February in the 25-54-year-old demographic.
