So, first thanks to all the people who responded by email to THIS DIARY. It’s more pertinent in light of the Supreme Court decision that money should control politics more explicitly than it does today.
I am, as are many of you, concerned that this decision could precipitate a truly frightening turn of events in American politics. I am perhaps on the extreme end of that in that, being a Brit by origin I'm more cognizant of the real spectre of fascism and its ability to quickly take over a nation - particularly one as conformist and militarist as this. I see a Palin presidency as something that could usher in such a future. That's extreme, I get that, you don't have to buy into that to listen to the rest of my argument.
But I think the court's decision will be of declining impact over the next five to ten years for reasons I'll outline below, and therefore if we can nail the re-election of Obama we might outlive the power of the decision to destroy Democracy in America.
Qualification: I run a Silicon Valley start-up and am deeply involved in the future direction of media
The primary reason money is power in US politics is that it buys ads, and more specifically air-time. But air-time is rapidly decreasing in relevance.
An aside - this'll seem a bit off the wall but go with me. Firefly. Awesome TV show. Canned cruelly by Fox for "disappointing ratings". The irony of the Firefly termination - widely celebrated by critics as one of the most egregious examples of short-sighted TV executives out there - is that Fox would kill for Firefly's ratings in that time slot nowadays.
Similarly the Leno/Conan fight is interesting in that NBC seems to think that the reason that slot is declining in ratings is that Conan is less attractive a performer than Leno. The reality is that all ratings will continue to decline.
I don't watch much TV any more. Used to watch dozens of hours per week. Now I watch Mad Men on Netflix. Sports (damn I am hoping to see a Favre/Manning superbowl). Um... Always Sunny... what else? Not much that I can think of.
Part of this is self-inflicted by the networks. I loved Kings but it was killed off. I liked Daybreak and Journeyman. Canned. Why invest my time into a TV show when I don't know that it's going to last. Better to wait for a few seasons and catch up online or on DVD if it has staying power and people I respect like it - that's what I did with Lost.
The other part of it is that an increasing part of the former TV audience has so many more interesting things to do with their time. And even as they watch TV they're moving towards more and more online media consumption. Same trend that causes me to have not inserted a CD into a player for months. That means I haven't listened to much radio (thanks Pandora).
Advertisers recognize this and realise they have to get into the social conversation and are leveraging new forms of ads, or incenting friends to recommend to friends.
All of these new media trends decline the power of broadcast ads.
Another interesting side effect that many of you may be less familiar with is the effectiveness of ad targeting. This is not all bad. Ads are worth more and responded to more when they're well targeted to your intention an what you want - in short the less you hate an ad the more valuable it is. So you'll see fewer ads you don't want to see over time - and that means fewer political attack ads will get in front of you.
Finally, sharing. As more ad spend moves to sharing this has renders political ads particularly problematic in terms of effectiveness. Why? Because we already have learned to discount shared links from friends who are crazy political extremists. If my buddy recommends a pair of shoes I may not like them, but I've at least considered his shoes. If I know he's a wingnut and he's recommending an attack video on Hilary Clinton, I'm just not going to bother watching it.
This ruling was bad. Don't get me wrong. It's a national shame and embarrassment - terms we have to use way more often than we should for this great nation, nowadays.
But there's hope. The world of media is changing.
I haven't even touched on the most exciting new media trend that's still a bit under the radar but which will touch all of your lives soon - mobile apps emerging as core channels for communication and media consumption. But they also mitigate against political ad spend's effectiveness while simultaneously providing great opt-in organizational tools.
Smart brands realise instead of unwelcome interruption based advertising and slick dishonest messaging they're having to move towards building a trusting relationship with their customers based on respect, customer service and becoming loved by their audience. That's very hard to do with political attack ads.
I am sad at the missed opportunities, politically, from year one of the Obama administration. I am shocked by the unresponsiveness of our side's politicians and their ineffectiveness.
But there is....
...hope
