Matt Buckler: At last, commercials we can tolerate
Nov. 10—Finally there were messages that we approved of — car commercials, prescription drug commercials, and lawyer commercials were taking up the prime spots in the evening and late night news that had been reserved the past two months for political advertising. There were too many commercials and they were repeated over and over again.
There was even a commercial at 7:20 p.m. Tuesday — just 40 minutes before the polls closed for Harry Arora for state treasurer. Perhaps he was counting on a last-minute rush to the polls.
Not only did it seem there were more commercials during this election cycle, but it also seemed like there were more attack ads paid for by political groups.
Ironically, the three candidates who were the targets of the negative ads — Richard Blumenthal, Ned Lamont and Jahana Hayes — all won their elections, despite the commercial blitz thrown at them.
When you consider all the money that was spent this year, you wonder if those political groups got their money's worth.
Are attack ads as effective as they used to be? Congressman Joe Courtney for example, didn't run one attack ad — and he aired plenty of commercials — and Courtney won his race by a wide margin. Perhaps sometimes it works to take the high road.
Plus his opponent didn't air any commercials.
Even though the commercials were gone, there was still some unfinished election business Wednesday.
Bob Stefanowski conceded his race for governor at 8 a.m., and then viewers had to wait until after 7 p.m. for Hayes to declare victory over George Logan in the 5th District Congressional race.
The coverage was similar from all four stations.
The one bobble was from WTNH-TV8 during the 11 p.m. newscast. It opened its show with the report that the Secretary of State had declared Hayes the winner.
A few minutes later, on the crawl on the bottom of the screen, the news was that the race "was too close to call."
Obviously, Channel 8 had not updated the ticker. But if viewers tuned in last and only saw the ticker, they would have thought that the race was still undecided. It was a case of Channel 8 contradicting itself.
The station did have a bonus later in the newscast with an interview conducted by reporter Jayne Chacko with the widow of a man who who was killed Tuesday. It was an example of a TV station giving the viewers something extra.
As far as election night viewership is concerned, WFSB-TV3 put out a promo claiming it had the most-watched coverage.
As far as national coverage was concerned, ABC won a cliffhanger over NBC. ABC averaged 3.3 million viewers for its three-hour coverage while NBC drew 3.1 million viewers. CBS picked up 2.6 million viewers for its election coverage. The network would have collected far more viewers, however, if it showed "FBI."
Broadcast TV, however, was no match for cable at the Fox News Channel, which won the night in a landslide by averaging more than 7 million viewers. It was supposed to be a big night for Republicans, and that means it was a big night for Fox.
Season start
The UConn women's basketball team opens its regular season with a 7 p.m. game on SNY against Northeastern.
The best piece of information about the game didn't come from a sports reporter — it came from WTIC-TV61 anchor Ben Goldman who was handling the sports reporting for the 10 p.m.
He told viewers that UConn's Caroline Ducharme was doubtful to play tonight because of a stiff neck. She already was forced out of action Sunday in an exhibition game.
That's the type of information UConn women fans can really appreciate.
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Matt Buckler is television and radio editor of the Journal Inquirer.
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