It occurs to me that there may be a viable (and profitable) business case to be made regarding the formation of an all-politics network, part cable news, History Channel, and A&E.
There is a definable audience with desirable demographics. There’s a known cycle of politics. The (main established) networks have thousands of hours of archived video to repackage.
The ability to sanely and accurately portray issues (like foreign policy or economics), detailing the various electoral dirty tricks, even an opportunity to do a Mythbusters-type show with candidates statements, similar to FactCheck.
Think of it as CSPAN for profit with a pulse. If I have a half-dozen religious channels as well as golf and bass fishing, why don’t I have a political channel?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Bassdem // Jan 3, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Actually the bass fishing on most of those outdoor channels is few and far between. Hunters are the ones being represented (and oddly enough probably also the same folks who watch the religious channels).
As long as PoliticsTV has a Fact Check on their own pulse with full disclosure, it might work. Otherwise it’s no different than anything else political on tv. They also need to have a rule that states they will not agree to disagree, but seek resolve on every issue discussed.
2 david // Jan 4, 2008 at 2:01 am
My thought before I clicked “more…” was, “oh, like a better, more attractive C-Span.”
At first I thought it was a bad idea, but I actually like it. For me to tune in it would have to rather even-handed and impartial, but if it did that I’d be the happiest boy around.
3 rzklkng // Jan 5, 2008 at 11:05 am
I’d like to think there’s a third choice between left or right ideologies, one that the country seems ready for. Right now, we’re stuck with a handfull of coalitions spanning the liberal & conservative political continuim on both economic & social issues. All ‘problems’ are then ‘framed’ as to who they benefit, and who they hurt. We then get stuck in positional negotiations based on political outcomes, and not necessarily based on solving the problem. The debate seldom focuses on the credibility of the problems, an accurate analysis of the current & desired states, more than one possible solution, or a way to determine the effectiveness of a solution. Instead of ‘lose-leave’, ‘win-lose’, and ‘lose-win’ outcomes, why can’t we pursue ‘win-wins’?
4 rzklkng // Jan 5, 2008 at 11:23 am
Let’s take for instance immigration, both legal and illegal. Context I’d want to see provided would be our historic stances on immigration, and how effective they were towards ’solving’ the issues of their times. Questions I’d like to see addressed are what kind of problem (and opportunities) are presented by immigration? What are the range of political stances, who do those stances effect (and how), and what are the political consequences - who wins, who loses. I’d then like to see discussions about win-win scenarios.
A PoliticsTV-type network shouldn’t be about campaign strategists, pundits and election horse-racing analysis, or being a propaganda outlet. I’d rather see a display of relevant facts, a discussion on the ideology and positions of the various players, the social and economic impact of the problem, the politics, and solutions, and discussions addressing the problems from a win-win perspective.
Basically, everything we’re getting currently plus everything we don’t. Less politics, more policy.
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