Once upon a time, anyone who wanted to watch TV during a big political speech was (almost) forced to watch the speech. Why? Because when the big three networks - CBS, NBC, and ABC (in the days before Fox - you remember them, right?) - chose to run a big speech, there was nothing else on. Sure, some UHF station you could barely watch might be running ancient reruns or roller derby (in my case, this would have been WFLD, Channel 32, in Chicago), but the stations you could see clearly - the ones you were trained to watch each night - were the big three networks. When they told you to watch Richard Nixon, you watched Richard Nixon.
So I wonder today how well a network roadblock (the phenomenon when all the major networks show the same thing at once) succeeds in getting the public to focus on something like a major political speech. Today's viewer has tons of alternative viewing options, from the many other cable networks, to On Demand, to DVD's, to her computer. As a practical matter, the roadblock doesn't block much at all.
But I do think it might do something. It expresses the view that the speech is important. The act of roadblocking is an important form of editorial commentary. (OK, perhaps coerced commentary, since networks no doubt feel a regulatory duty to broadcast this material as part of its commitment to the public interest).
Roadblocks may not be wholly successful in convincing utterly uninterested viewers to listen to Obama or McCain for 45 minutes. But for those swing viewers, maybe it suggests that...gosh...this might just be something I oughta watch. I hope so.
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Posted by: watch lost online | October 30, 2009 at 07:46 AM