Low voter turnout delivers high viewer tune-out
On the coattails of a giant lead-in for the season premiere of ABC’s “Lost,” WLS-Channel 7 won the ratings Tuesday night for its coverage of the Illinois primary. But the big surprise was the close second-place finish for WBBM-Channel 2, which opted out of extended coverage and stuck with its regular news format at 10 p.m. What seemed like a shameful abrogation of Channel 2’s duty appears in hindsight to have been a calculated business decision that paid off.
Channel 2 no doubt was helped by the strength of CBS’ “The Good Wife,” but the relatively low news numbers across the board reflected widespread apathy over an election in which three out of four eligible voters stayed home. Channel 5 preempted NBC’s lame-duck “Jay Leno Show” slot to begin continuous coverage at 9 p.m. — matching the start times of Channel 9 (which aired its first two hours of coverage anchored by WGN’s Mark Suppelsa and Micah Materre on CLTV) and Channel 32.
Election night notes:
- Out with the old: Lots of familiar faces from past election nights were missing from the tube. No Dick Kay. No Walter Jacobson. No Joel Weisman. No Andy Shaw. No Jack Conaty. No Bob Sirott. No Rich Samuels. Viewers lost out on the insights and institutional memories they used to bring to the table. Instead, we got a lot of self-serving politicians and moonlighting columnists.
- In with the new: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady used Skype to transmit his words and image to at least two Chicago stations, suggesting a future of more intimate election-night exchanges between candidates and viewers. Even more promising was the live chat here on blogs.vocalo.org that brought together scores of journalists, bloggers, political consultants and pols in an exhilarating four-hour free-for-all. The active participation of Gov. Pat Quinn — hours before he engaged any other media — was the night’s biggest coup by far.
- Strange bedfellows: Considering that James Warren quit the Chicago Tribune in 2008 and now competes against his old newspaper as a columnist for the Chicago News Cooperative and publisher of the Reader, it was odd to see him on WGN/CLTV all night as an in-studio analyst. (Nice to know Tribune Co. doesn’t hold a grudge.) Odder still that the Tribune’s star columnist, John Kass, turned up across town as a pundit for the competition on Fox-owned Channel 32.
- Never mind: Each station had its share of gaffes — both technical and editorial. Channel 5’s savvy political editor, Carol Marin, caught herself midway through a bulletin announcing a recount effort by Adlai Stevenson III, co-chair of Dan Hynes’ gubernatorial campaign, before realizing she was reading a reference to the razor-thin contest between Stevenson and Jim Thompson in 1982.
- Solo performance: With co-anchors Jeff Goldblatt and Anna Davlantes out in the field covering Todd Stroger and Pat Quinn headquarters, respectively, Robin Robinson commanded Channel 32’s anchor desk all by herself. Robinson not only outshined the competition on Channel 2 and Channel 5, but she outlasted everyone else in the market: As best I can recall, the Fox station was the last to sign off its coverage — at 12:50 a.m. Wednesday.
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02 2010
blogs.vocalo.org
As I emailed you earlier Rob, all of the stations except for WBBM have additional channels at .2 &.3.
Why didn’t they preempt that crap & run wall to election results there?
No one was going to miss LiveWell or Universal Sports thrilling repeats of 10 year old bobsled runs.
Fox Chicago may have outlasted the other stations’ election coverage, but by four minutes at most. Channel 7 ended their coverage at 12:46AM. I’m a political junkie and stuck with Channel 7’s coverage starting at 10. I looked at the clock to see what time they finally wrapped things up. Got a kick out of Kathy Brock calling Alan Krashesky “Krash” once.
Believe it or not, NBC didn’t air “The Jay Leno Show” Tuesday night. The network aired a repeat of The Biggest Loser (which wasn’t shown in Chicago), followed by a two-hour episode (which I guess was moved to 7 p.m. here.) http://bit.ly/aFOVEz
I also was surprised to see John (Mayor Chucky) Kass on Fox instead of WGN.
Channel 2 missed the boat by not bringing in Walter and Bill as a guest spot.
Even Roeper and Mike Flannery can’t save the Morning Monster Mash.
. . . . .
Suggestion: add Rick Kogan (he is probably still up anyway, resurrect the
always entertaining “Media Creatures”) for at least a half hour – or more.
Flannery (minus bad sweaters) should be allowed to comment daily until the election.
Bring in (alternate til you find someone funny) a local comedian that can do
observation commentary or bring in John Kass – WGN doesn’t seem to want him.
What about me?
I was going to vote, but I got busy. But I promise to vote twice in the general election.
As for this post, who needs the groupthink of all those ancient pundits who had the decency to fade away? Show me one of them who last year predicted that there would be such a backlash against President Obama that Massachusetts would elect a Republican. In Chicago, the equivalent would be seeing a man dance with his wife.
I do enjoy the fact that my beloved Carol Marin (the Queen Mum), a truly wonderful and beautiful journalist, goofed up by presenting the old as news. (but then plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose?) Her gaffe does trigger a thought: why not oldies political talk? How about running tapes of Royko, sitting on the anchor desk, poring over the figures and announcing that there are some votes still being held out in key precincts in Cook County? And beneath it you have Simon & Garfunkel singing “Laugh about it, shout about it, when you’ve got to choose…”? Nah. Too trite.
I didn’t see any of the coverage, but I suspect the reason Ch. 2 did so well was because it offered an alternative. A quick hit. Which may be what local TV news does best. You don’t go to McDonald’s for a New York strip steak. You want some meat, you read, oh, National Review.
I wasn’t allowed to vote, something about being a convicted felon, but I was disappointed that Jim Warren didn’t share some bits from “Savage Love” or the personals during the lulls in the WGN coverage.
I was watching WGN’s coverage and they had Cliff Kelly on. For a second, I thought it was that puppet, Weird, from Gigglesnort Hotel.
NBC 5 had nemerous technical problems and many times had commercials starting in between reports cutting in and out. Also as a candidate was speaking they would cut into another report which made no sense. Carol was glued to her lab top on the set and I finally got too upset with watching and turned back to my favorite ABC 7. Better coverage and they allowed me to listen to a candidate as he spoke without cutting away. WLS TV 7 still knows how to cover an election…….
Robert,
Is it ironic that the last place network (Fox) sent their last place anchor (Jeff Goldblatt) to helm coverage from the last place candidate’s headquarters (Todd Stroger)?
Doesn’t that seem a bit ridiculous? Fox had to know, even by 7pm, that Stroger was in last place, and therefore pretty meaningless. Why not re-deploy Jeff? Isn’t he a marquee name to Fox?
Another example of how they continue to scrape along the bottom of the barrel.
interesting such low viewing with such close races. hopefully the emerging background of one lieutenant governor candidate will make for newscast draw. Apparently his girlfriend was involved in a landmark report by dave savini regarding motel bedspread ecology.
I miss seeing Dan Rostenkowski on FOX. Also, could voter turn out be so low because the media treats politics and politicians with less respect than reality stars?
Mr. Feder – I’m starting to catch on to your sense of humor. That was pretty funny sneaking in Bob Sirott’s name among such legendary political reporters/commentators as Walter Jacobson, Dick Kay, Andy Shaw, Jack Conaty and Rich Samuels. Kind of like the green M&M’s in the Van Halen contracts – right? You just included his name to see if anyone is reading, right? Oh you crazy chuckle-head, you crack me up!
A near record low voter turnout? …in February?? That’s because it’s February! Hell, even the groundhog barely comes out to see his shadow. Why doesn’t Illinois move their primary elections to May? That would be too logical. Other states seem to be ok with springtime primaries.
What of they held an election and nobody cared. Oh, wait they did.
I’ve always wondered why most radio/tv/newspapers have such indepth coverage of a topic that has such a niche following. What was it about a 30 percent voter turnout? That means 70 percent of registered voters don’t care about the election and probably 100 percent of the unregistered voters don’t care about it. You’d think they’d just bury the results somewhere in the paper, or slight mention on the airwaves. Oh well, I’m glad most people dont vote cause it makes my vote count for more. As for the month the election is held….I say if you can’t get out to vote because of the weather, you probably shouldn’t be voting ever.
I’m having my secretary pull the Warner Saunders file so I might stick a note in it that Robert Feder not only mentioned an afro american newsperson in Chicago – he did it in a positive unbiased fashion (as he has for over 30 years). “Robinson not only outshined the competition on Channel 2 and Channel 5, but she outlasted everyone else in the market” Warner would be spining in his grave if he knew Rob Feder said that about a female afro american news anchor in Chicago. Wait a minute — Warner isn’t dead!! Well, maybe just his opinion on Rob is…
It’s about the numbers..not who reads them that matters.
And Bruce “what about me” Wolf..what about you?
You were too busy writing about yourself and pontificating about
old washed up radio and sports people to have time to vote?
Thats pathetic. Thankfully enough people get what the right to vote means..
and found time in their busy lives to vote and make a big difference
in Cook County and other places.
I hope the people that hang on your every word are smart enough to talk is cheap.
@Katie Cahill Ogilvy: Some lawyer will tell me if I’m wrong I’m sure, but I believe convicted felons can vote in Illinois. Of course, if you’re still in prison…hey we’re glad you read Feder anyway, right?
While Robin Robinson was good as a solo anchor on FOX and had to stop watching after the first hour because I could not believe the poor decision made by the station in their coverage. First, why would they send one of their main anchors to Todd Storger’s campaign? He was not expected to win and the race was called before 9:00pm, even though Stroger did not speak until 10:00pm. What did Goldblatt do until the station signed off at 12:50? If I were the news director the main anchor would have been sent to a bigger race that was going to go on well into the night. The other thing was since Stroger was in last they kept leaving his vote totals off of the screen only showing the top three candidates. There was enough room for him and he is the incumbent. That was unacceptable to me and I had to turn it off, not responsible journalism.
The Vocolo/WBEZ chat was something else. And Pat Quinn’s participation is noteworthy — provided it was in fact him and not an aide. Really there was no way for the Peanut Gallery to tell…
Lauren, I do know that Governor Quinn does not have great typing skills. But my guess is that it was him, probably with some help – like an aide typing. But the campaign assured me it was going to be him…
Hey Robert–
In your “out with the old” paragraph, you omitted another missing individual that would’ve spiced up the otherwise banal coverage…
Yes, Carlos WAS badly missed !
Dr. Wayne (comment#8): nbc (they don’t deserve caps)relies on an almost personless computerized operation to bring you that fine sucked of any energy on air look. WLS has had some whoppers too, but not as bad as nbc…so painful to watch, which is why I no longer do.
Jack Conaty was on WLS radio all night doing commentary, I am pretty sure.
My Tivo choices Tuesday night were Channels 2 & 7. I was shocked to see David Letterman came on, on time… But given the abysmal turnout and corporate penny pinching, it probably was to be expected.
Channel 7 put reporters in the field at least, but the analysis and commentary from the anchor desk came across like the clearance rack at Wal Mart. Precious little institutional memory or insight, but Cheryl Burton did squeeze herself into a nice, tad-too-small blouse. Always the pro… Ron Magers & Kathy Brock dutifully read the teleprompters and brought in reporter after reporter, like good dispatchers who may have been working past their bed times.
On 2, Mike Flannery & Rob Johnson raced through results like auctioneers. There were even some non election features on what was a normal 10 O’Clock News. Some suit is going to hit his budget numbers this month. I hope they’re proud…
Bottom line: it’s time for those who want to be knowledgeable about local government to figure out how that gets done in the 21st Century. Clearly it’s no longer going to happen watching the local news on broadcast TV.
What about me?
Sorry Bruce…needed to borrow the phrase for this one passage. I won’t do it again. Please don’t sue…you being a lawyer and all.
But in reading Mr. Feder’s blog and the responses from his ardent blog followers, I feel many missed an opportunity to get what the above “strut2k” and others say they missed election night. The Big 9. In this day when you have to ask for a raise or ask people with a tv clicker in their hands to sample your product…I’m forced to ask, “What about me? If you had TIVO’d us you’d have watched more than 5 1/2 hours of coverage solely on the election with a pace and tone that wasn’t scripted, nor rushed and more often than not, we heard, insightful and on-the-mark with results, speeches and analysis. And during our prime hour of coverage from 9p to 10p, I believe the tv viewers responded in kind with better than a 6 rating as we competed against this season’s unusually popular prime time programming. And I’m told there several hundred thousand hits on our election page at wgntv.com including our record for time spent watching our coverage streaming online. So…next time Feder readers, what about me?