Comments on: TV still trumps web for election news

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:09:51 +0000

Why is this so often seen as an “either/or” situation. With both having their strong points, it seems to me the solution is probably somewhere in the middle with each complimenting the other and pushing “viewers/consumers” in whichever direction they feel most comfortable.
Just give “viewers/consumers” as much good content as you can and let them decide, sorta like an a la carte menu.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:57:22 +0000

TV news is great. Nostradamus reads the results 2 hours esrly and back to whatever.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:20:40 +0000

Before I read the article, my first thought was of the blur between tv sites, archived video and television in general, but it looks like they may have covered it. (Though, I’m not seeing the questions, so I don’t know for sure)

Of course since I can’t see the questions and because the results don’t make a lot sense, I kind of think that the respondents didn’t purposefully mislead, but they just gave the answer, they usually give.

71% used the three broadcast networks “a lot” for coverage of the presidential race? On non-primary days, if you total all of the network’s morning interviews, repetitious news breaks, plus the stuff from their evening news, you’d be lucky if it added-up to as much as twenty to thirty minutes.

Television may have been the first thing the respondents thought about, but if the “a lot” are just the five minutes on the underwatched 6:30 report, then either we have an uninformed electorate or a lot of people who answers surveys out of habit.

By: tdc

tdc — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:23:43 +0000

and as for “go to”- you’ll see the study concluded that folks went to friends and family for news at twice the rate of local tv.

TWICE THE RATE.

By: tdc

tdc — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:21:32 +0000

i’m told cnn didn’t even pan the crowd of 75,000 yesterday in portland.

so much for the power of tv.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:45:39 +0000

Cory sez: “But the study shouldn’t feed the misplaced beliefs inside TV newsrooms that TV will always be the top “go to” source for news.”

I sez: True. But that won’t stop TV managers from spinning memos like this so they can cling to the notion that TV is still king and the web is still ‘new media’, so the lion’s share of the resources they’ll justify will continue to be poured into TV while the web will continue to get a pittance.