Convention Week, Sort Of
American political conventions have been the stuff of legends over time…but lately, they’ve become highly scripted, formulaic and somewhat boring. In recent cycles, the major broadcast networks only provided a single hour of coverage in prime time.
Four years ago, we pre-empted regular programming to bring you live coverage of both the Democrat and Republican conventions, from 7 p.m. until 10 or 11 p.m. each night.
But this year’s conventions are different…and so will be our coverage.
The parties say they’ll be provided a program of speakers…some live, some recorded…that they’ll pipe through a video and audio streaming platform. Everything scripted, rehearsed, and planned. No chance for anything out of line, no chance for delegate responses.
The idea of breaking into programming is if something newsworthy is happening; last Monday’s storm certainly qualified, as do major news conferences, or events where news will be made in a less-than-predictable fashion.
Neither party’s convention seems to fit that definition. So as they start their evening efforts at 7 p.m. Iowa time, Mark Levin will be on live to keep you updated on anything worthwhile that might be happening. And when the parties pull out their major speakers as the broadcast TV networks start coverage at 9 p.m., Jim Bohannon will be on live, including during the acceptance speeches.
So the KXEL listener really won’t miss anything without wall-to-wall coverage…Levin and Bohannon will cover newsworthy matters live, and you won’t have to sit through boring filler material from off-site convention anchors.
That’s certainly not the plan we had a few months ago. But nothing is going as planned this year. And we just wanted you to know.
