"Earned Media": 2016 Record Audience for Debate

Approximately 100 million people were expected to watch the first presidential debate between Trump and Hillary in the 2016 Presidential campaign. Those numbers would make it the most watched presidential debate in history.

Televised Debates have become the centerpiece of the presidential campaign. All throughout the history of debates, they have brought in a high number of viewers.  The first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon almost 50 years ago was watched my 70 million people. Ever since its invention, the television has had a growing importance of television in politics. Some say the televised debate was the reason Nixon lost the presidential election, because he was not as comfortable in front of the camera and audience like Kennedy was and that he performed badly. However, Nixon was favored over Kennedy by radio listeners, so his presence and comfortability with television might have been behind his down fall in the election.

With the enormous amount of viewers watching presidential debates, a slip-up on live air during a debate could have a significant negative impact on a candidates campaign. In this day and age, it seems that presidential candidates must be somewhat of who are comfortable in front of a camera or else they are doomed, which is something that was discussed in our text. Actors or performers almost have an advantage today's world because they are used to that type of exposure. Examples of this are Ronald Regan and Arnold Shwarzennager who were both actors before they became successful politicians.

*News Article: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/09/daily-chart-19

Profit and Money Spent: 2016 TV Political Ads

During times of peak demand (during the election), stations can sell political ads spaces for 40-50 times more than a regular television ad. Political advertising is now over 10%-12% of average revenue and it keeps growing at a fast rate. This growth is making political ad spots disproportionately valuable.

During the 2016 election, the campaign was set to break records due to the fact that it was the first-ever election without an incumbent presidents running, so there was no financial restrictions. Corporation are allowed to spend as much money as they would like to support or defeat the presidential candidate. The advertising volume was at 122% over 2012 levels several months before the election was to even take place. Digital ads were expected to reach an all time high when this article came out, but interestingly enough the bulk of the money was estimated to go to local broadcast tv.

All of the money spent will become revenue on the other side of the ad business. Some of the broadcasters that were predicted to make the most from the presidential election E.W. Scipps, Gray Television, Tenga, Sinclar Broadcasting Nexstar, Tribune, Media General, Entravision,  CBS, Comcast, the Television Bureau of Advertising.Advertisers have also been more aggressive in buying time in the third and fourth quarter than previously because they they don't want to have to compete for inventory if there is a possible sell-out and end up paying a sky-rocketed rate. A whopping 50% of political ad money goes to media companies in the first 5-6 weeks of the fourth quarter.

However, while the next political payday is a few years away, investors cannot assume that the TV will remain in such high demand on the  political advertising market. Social Media is becoming increasingly popular in today's world and this will sure to be reflected in the future of political advertising.

News Article: https://www.thestreet.com/story/13594342/1/tv-political-ad-spending-will-break-records-in-2016-and-these-broadcasters-will-cash-in.html

Which Medium is the Most Powerful Tool for Political Campaign Ads?

A study shows that broadcast television was more trusted and had more of an impact that any other platform during the 2016 presidential election. An article written by Steve Lanzano details, "According to the new Voter Funnel study from GfK, which measured the actions taken as a result of being exposed to specific types of political advertising, TV was the most influential medium at every step of the decision-making process" (Lanzano 2016). This medium influenced Americans awareness and interest. They also got more information from TV than any other platform, when they considered voting and voted to determine who they should vote for. The TV also helped drive traffic to other media. 70% of respondents took action in response to seeing a political advertisement on TV. 26% of those respondents went online to learn more about the candidate and 31% discussed the candidates ad with others.

Further more, local television online platforms did especially well also with 64% of voters responding that they visited the websites of local news stations more frequently for information than social media platforms with only 11%.These statistics contradict a lot of peoples beliefs that digital media platforms are becoming the lead media for advertising strategies. Rather, people first turn to television and then after some initial information is gathered it drives the audience to online content to investigate the initial information further. Digital media platforms are being used to supplement information from the TV.  Another positive statistic about local broadcast television in particular, is that it is found to be way more credible and more effective of a way to get a candidates message to the votes. Across all ages, genders and political affiliations 84% of participants said that they believed  the local broadcast was the platform that they trusted most for information. This is over double the percentage of respondents that listed social media, which was only 41%.
As research shows, local broadcast television continues to be the most powerful tool for political campaigns, despite new and expanding technologies. It remains the most impactful way to talk to voters and it drives political discussion and propels voters to learn more.

*News Article: https://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/study-local-tv-is-the-biggest-influencer-of-voter-decisions

Public Policy and Social Media

This study I discovered revealed that the majority of Americans see the impact the social media has on public policy. Nearly 80% of American believe that social media has at least some impact on public policy outcomes, according to  a new Finn Futures survey. There was 1000 American adults who participated in the survey. Three of the mail public policy components that the participants believed social media has influence on is , gun control, and trade. College aged respondents were the most likely to respond that social media has a significant impact, which is not a surprise. Although, these participants did have split views on whether this impact was positive or negative. Over half of the participants said that social media had some kind of impact on their voting decision. Also, over half of the respondents said that they shared their political opinions on social media at least occasionally. Member of Congress must be prepared to respond in an increasingly digital way, due to this increasingly high rate of how much social media effects politics. Social media is playing a bigger role in shaping public policy and so much more.

*News Article: https://www.holmesreport.com/research/article/americans-see-social-media-impact-on-public-policy

Research Shows Negative Media Coverage of Trump

A new study recently conducted by the Pew Research Center found that Trump's media coverage in his first 60 days of presidency was far more negative than past presidents. As shown in the picture attached on the right, the percentage of stories from the first 60 days of presidency that had an overall negative assessment of Trump was 62%. This is a significantly higher number than Obama, Bush and Clinton (Obama=20%, Bush=28%, and Clinton=28%). The number of stories than had an overall positive assessment of Trump were just 5%. Researcher who conducted the study selected sites with larger audiences. These sites included newspapers, radio station outlets, websites, and nightly and evening new programs from cable and broadcast TV. The research also found other discrepancies as well. An article by Max Londberg that described these findings explains, "Compared with the three prior presidencies, coverage of Trump's early days in office moved further away from a focus on the policy agenda and more towards character and leadership."  Only 31 percent of stories covered policy agenda from Trump, compared to 50 percents with Obama, 65 percent with Bush and 58 percent with Clinton.

*News Article: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article176797431.html

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker

A screenshot of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker

Earlier this year, the U.S. Freedom Tracker was launched to serve as a central database to track our countries freedom and specifically focuses on attacks on the press. It tracks the number of arrests of journalists, the number of equipment searches and seizers, the number of physically attacks on journalists, and the number of border stops of journalists.  It is explained in an article written by Bianca Fortis, "As concerns about domestic press freedom violations grow, a coalition of media partners has created a database to track those violations" (Fortis 2017). The tracker will be operated by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, but is a collaborative project from around twenty media partners. The database primarily focuses on the government interference with the press, including those actions by the Trump administration, as well as local elected officials and police departments. The U.S. Freedom Tracker also presents featured incidents on the main page that relate to the numbers that are being tracked as well as recent incidents, so you can remain up-to-date with news related to these types of issues focused on. Readers can also 'submit an incident' on issues of freedom of the press.

• Question for Reader: Do you think the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker provides helpful information?

*News Article: http://mediashift.org/2017/08/u-s-press-freedom-tracker-log-press-freedom-violations/