I worked in television for 25 years, Stu, 21 of those years for an NBC affiliate. I know something about how it works. President Bush doesn't control what is advertised on NBC during Meet The Press. And if the president, or for that matter any candidate, attempted to determine which commercials aired, that'd be one more thing for the opposition to use in their campaigns against him, because it'd become an issue of free speech.
Advertisers pay for certain time slots within shows. They know the nature of the program during which their ads will air and in fact sometimes use that very thing to their advantage. Commercials are not just arbitrarily dumped into a show without regard to content. Television sales execs would be out of jobs if that were the case.
I'm not sure what you're complaining about in the first place. IMO, you're being pedantic to the point of ridiculousness.
Advertisers pay for certain time slots within shows. They know the nature of the program during which their ads will air and in fact sometimes use that very thing to their advantage. Commercials are not just arbitrarily dumped into a show without regard to content. Television sales execs would be out of jobs if that were the case.
Well, we have something in common (scary, I know). Media industry experience.
I understand this, arasina.
I didn't say he should have approved the commercials. I think he should have demanded a "no-commercial" clause. Any network would still jump on the commercial-free interview for an exclusive. He could have demanded it, and got it.
This is not unprecidented. None of the networks run commercials during in the hour-long state of the Union Address, they didn't run commercials during long stretches of coverage of the War in Iraq, etc.
I think an interview with the sitting President of the United States in a time of war is one of those situations in which the commercials should wait until the end of the interview. Co-mingling commercials of flying dogs and impotetnce products with the President's first private interview in some time is disgraceful.
In my humble opinion.
I've been in the media business myseld, and you know, and I know that NBC would have agreed to go commercial-free in a heartbeat if Bush had demanded it. And if they didn't, ABC, CBC, or Fox would have.
And that's exactly what he should have demanded. Again, IMHO.
I shudder to think that 5 years from now we will be watching the "Taco Bell State of the Union Address".