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Friday, September 29, 2006
Debate over the gubernatorial debate
Wonder how many voting citizens will actually see the one-and-only televised Texas gubernatorial debate next week …
First of all, the debate is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. That just happens to be the Friday before the Texas-Oklahoma game in Dallas. And even if it weren’t the evening before a big, out-of-town football game, it’s still airing on a Friday, which is only slightly better than Saturday, the night Nielsen ratings practically disappear.
Second of all, the four candidates — Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Democrat Chris Bell, Republican-turned-independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn and independent Kinky Friedman — gave Belo Corp. exclusivity with a load of limitations.
In Belo markets (Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston), only Belo stations can carry the hourlong debate live. In other markets, TV stations can pluck it off a satellite feed. But here in Austin, only KVUE Channel 24, which is owned by Belo, can carry the debate live. Other stations can use excerpts for their newscasts, but they cannot air the entire debate or stream it on their Web sites.
Why is there exclusivity for a political debate?
“We’re putting on the debate,” says Mike Devlin, station manager for WFAA, the Belo station in Dallas. “I’m spending lots of time on this, we —- the Texas Belo stations and The Dallas Morning News — are putting it on. We’re not going to go through all this time and expense to hand over our work and investment to competitors in the marketplace.”
Devlin points out that any station outside the four Texas Belo markets can air the debate live. And any TV or newspaper can send reporters to cover it and air excerpts from it.
Time Warner’s News 8 Austin is miffed and trying to stir up some opposition to it.
“We’re not allowed to air live, not allowed to tape-delay, not allowed to put it on video-on-demand or in its entirety on the Web site,” fumed News 8 news director Kevin Benz. “It’s our journalistic obligation to make this political discourse available to the largest number of people. I don’t think any of us are well-served by this kind of limitation.”
Devlin dismisses such criticism: “There were lots of proposals from other outlets for debates, and ours prevailed. Maybe it’s sour grapes.”
There is one exception to the rules: PBS stations in Belo markets, such as Austin’s KLRU, have the option of carrying the debate tape-delayed any time within four days of the actual event. But KLRU isn’t sure it wants to carry it.
“We’re still evaluating,” says KLRU President Bill Stotesbery. “It doesn’t really make much sense for us to run it again after KVUE has had it. Plus, we’re doing four ‘Texas Monthly Talks’ featuring hourlong in-depth interviews with the candidates throughout October.”
In other words, if you’re still mulling your choice for Texas governor, and you want to evaluate the candidates in a debate, you’d better get ready to watch or tape it next Friday on KVUE.
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