Election Night 2010

Sad News for Election viewers

Anthony Howard,, Ex Spectator editor and regular Election night figure, for over 50 years, died today

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WWW.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK/NEWS
19-Dec-2010 @ 20:03

Sorry if this is the wrong thread, but the election debates thread is archived.

Anyway, what are people's impressions of the tv election debates 6 months on or so since the election.

Given all the hype, the campaign Sky had and the media attention, I'm not so sure they had any impact on the outcome of the election. The Lib Dems bounce never materalised. Thus, were they completely pointless? Or were the debates useless because of the strict rules and lack of audience involvement?

I really think Adam Boulton's justification of the debates is rather pathetic in hindsight and it seems like the broadcast media just wanted to get some glory out of these debates to boost their egos.

Anyone think the debates were useful?

I think there was a significant bounce for the Lib Dems. Not as much as they had hoped, but enough to give them the "king maker" role once we were in hung parliament territory.

The problem for the Lib Dems (and now ultimately for the country), is that anything Saint Clegg said can be completely disregarded, as the slightest whiff of power made him renege on his pledges and break his promises to the electorate.

He folded faster than Superman on laundry day.

So, if anything, what he said in the debates (which I would like to see continued), should now be held as evidence used to declare void the results that returned a pledge breaking Liberal Democrat.

Otherwise they might as well have played infomercials for carpet sweepers that don't do what they promised on TV either.

I think in retrospect the problem with the debates is our campaign is so tightly concentrated that the three debates completely distorted the news cycle for that brief month - unlike the US where the campaign is spread so thin over such a long time. The debates became the only focal point for the media, and the days between them were interludes spent over-analysing the preceding debate, then anticipating the next one. I'd love to be solidly behind them in principle, but personally they didn't add anything to my decision making process. What I hadn't anticipated is that they could actually detract from the pace of the campaign itself, but I fear it did.

I disagree on that, they returned with pretty much the same number of seats as 2005 and the same national vote. They were just lucky to be the king maker, because the Conservatives failed to get an overall majority and hadn't enough seats to form a minority government.

Thinking more about it, the debates proved inconsequential to Brown and Cameron. Neither received any kind of boost nor did they lose any massive support.

The debates only got about 8-9 millions viewers as well, which wasn't great considering the widespread attention. Corrie gets more viewers than that.

I feel the Sky campaign was not justified and I hope they don't insist on a televised debate at the next election.

Yeah I agree with all of that. Not to mention that the debates themselves were incredibly dull and a huge anti-climax. All three had rehearsed every possible question. It was pointless.

This might be worth setting the Sky+ for:

Class Clips - Media Studies - Elections

A series of historical and contemporary clips to support GCSE Media Studies. This programme looks at television coverage of elections since the 1950s and the different techniques that have been used. It explores how television's relationship with politicians has changed and how they themselves have become more media aware. The programme also looks at the American presidential debates and how these have affected the outcome of presidential elections.

BBC Two, Friday 4th March, 5.00am

So a referendum here in Wales tomorrow, with the results coming in during the day on Friday and a special BBC Wales show throughout the day. Is it the Wales Today team fronting it, or will they borrow Huw again as they usually do on election night?

It's being presented by Jamie Owen according to the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z2k8m

Full details of the coverage were published by the BBC PO a few days ago....

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WWW.BBC.CO.UK/PRESSOFFICE
02-Mar-2011 @ 20:44

and ... Please can we stop calling News related PROGRAMMES - SHOWS. That really gets my backup something rotten.

10 years ago I'd have agreed with you - but now that we have "The Politics Show", "The Andrew Marr Show" and a few years ago we had "The News Show" on BBC Three - I think the phrase is now generic enough and in common usage to be interchangeable with programme - rather than meaning something more entertainmenty.

Have to agree with Noggin, and the first series of The One Show (when it was produced by BBC Birmingham), was much more serious than entertainment based as well. It was also a better programme then as well compared to now.