I first picked up this great story Thursday evening from NPR’s All Things Considered, titled “Networks Control of Debates Rankles Pundits“, by Laura Sydell. Listen to the story – it’s an interesting 4 minutes.
On May 3rd, Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards both wrote letters to network execs and party national committee chairs asking for videos to be placed under a creative commons license.
CNN decided on Saturday to be the first to jump in with its official announcement that beginning in June, “CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate”.
I expect more movement from other camps as well and am interested in which licensing options will be used. I’m suspecting networks will take the safest route and use Attribution + Non-Commercial + No Derivatives. If they do that, they’d at least better break up the video into segments so distributors and their audiences can quickly jump around to topics that interest them, so they could forward video links and discuss topics in a more organized fashion.
For the networks to do it right, they should offer premium content (high bitrate video, transcripts, commentary) on their websites. With the freely licensed content, they should proactively place lower bitrate videos on the various distribution sites with information and links to the premium content.
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What do you think? How can networks effectively create a better product offering with a dual approach? Interactive Marketers, I’m calling you out…Recess is now in session.
[photo design by me]
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
This shows the influence power of the new media over old media, which is as beneficial to the candidates as it is for the whole democratic process in this country.
Now that CNN has taken the lead and committed to improving freedom of political speech online, it will be difficult for other networks not to follow suit.
Making the videos available to everyone for free is a great step in the right direction. Now if they can just do something about the irrelevant questions, it might actually make some progress towards informing the public about substantial matters concerning the future of our republic.
There was once a time when orators would be called upon to talk for hours on end and be expected to make a cogent point. Now, if they can’t wrap up their “point” in 2.5 minutes or less (usually less), they’re pretty much erased from consideration. In this format, the media control the lens through which most people will view the information that comes out of the “debates.”
I love the free videos idea. But Cam is correct. Since the advent of TV debates, all we get are non-answers to stupid questions and sound bites that say nothing. I would rather see two candidates face off for 30 minutes of blow-by-blow debating, where they ask each other questions, than 90 minutes of facilitated, pre-prepared sound bites.
That’s a good point about the time format Cam, and the inclusion of silly questions within the time window users do get.
How about this?
For premium exclusively online content, a network could decide to give us an ‘insider discussion’ with a candidate or two, that wouldn’t be on air but at least teased to television watchers to come online and visit. Use Brightcove and a high bitrate video on the network site. Then release a lower bitrate version a few days later with a short splash screen at the beginning and end with info about the premium video, transcript, and other goodies back at the network site. Could be a Flash presentation with a biography.
Lewis,
A huge lesson in my first and only political science course in college was that the likability of a candidate’s perceived personality is by far the largest influencer when voting. Sounds like pure brand appeal at work here. With this in mind, voters need more personal air time with candidates to make a more “informed” decision. Greater distribution of online videos could at least help make that happen. But the production will need to be modified too, just as you and Cam pointed out.