I'm about to post on Edwards and media use around the 2004 election. Yet it's NOT about John Edwards OR blogs.
GASP!
Sign me up for XM Satellite Radio: Well, Bob Edwards has left the building—NPR's to be specific. His morning reports will soon be heard on XM Satellite Radio.
No surprise here. There was much gnashing of teeth when NPR ended Edwards' 25-year stint with "Morning Edition." NPR handled the initial response poorly, but stepped in quickly to stem additional negative response. In fact, they turned their example of crisis communications from what not to do, to what you should do—albeit with better timing.
What IS interesting is how Bob Edwards is going from public radio to fee-based radio. Message heard loud and clear Bob.
Democratic National Convention: While we are all well aware of one new form/format/forum of convention coverage this year, cell phones offer another new approach that is getting less attention. Pushing coverage to cell phones is an obvious move, but it reminds me that maybe I should stop lamenting the lack of RSS integration into browsers and start cajoling cell phone companies to start doing so?
RSS feeds for cell phones make even more sense in my opinion. RSS can take advantage of a cell phone's primarily text-based interface.
TiVo Sales to Surge in Swing States: Well, blogs are making an impact on the elections this year, but we all know it will never replace current forms of media. Case in point: Business 2.0 tells us that non-stop campaign advertising is forthcoming for swing states.
If you're looking for political ads, visit Ohio. According to the study -- the first of its kind to track all 210 media markets across the nation -- four of the top six destinations for presidential campaign advertising dollars are in the Buckeye State (Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo). Other saturated Middle American cities include Detroit; Erie, Pa.; Kansas City, Mo.; and St. Louis. Outside the Midwest, Las Vegas and Portland, Ore., round out the top 10 markets. The media-buying logic is simple. "If you see a state lost or won by 10 percentage points, there's no point in committing resources to it," Rivlin says. "The battle lines are already drawn."
As for the audience in these battleground states, both parties are targeting older voters. According to the study, those over 55 have seen the most ads. "Young viewers are notoriously difficult to reach through television advertising," says Jeff King, managing director of Nielsen Monitor-Plus. So the most money is flowing to programs with more mature viewers. Forty percent of all political campaign spending is on local news, while morning news programs like Good Morning America and The Today Show make up 11 percent of the pie. Both campaigns are also targeting female viewers. (More than 21 million single women who are eligible to vote do not exercise that right; getting this powerful group to the polls could be a deciding factor, especially in a tight race.) Accordingly, the next-largest political ad spending category for both parties is syndicated daytime talk programs such as Dr. Phil, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Regis & Kelly.
Again, no surprise, but the public relations industry could learn one heck of a lot from political campaigns.
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