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TELEVISION is generally acknowledged to have the longest
reach of all the media today, with audience access
estimated at 96 percent of all Filipinos nationwide.
Much has
thus been said about TV’s being the political
battleground in the campaign for this year’s elections.
The candidates’ media gurus know this if they know
nothing else. Thus, the political ads that
television—especially the two major networks ABS-CBN and
GMA-7—is attracting even at this early stage, which
should translate into hefty increases (by as much as 10
percent) in their revenues for this year.
The key
word is “revenues,” which at the candidates’ end means
“expenses.” The extensive reach of television means TV
ads aren’t cheap. A 30-second ad during prime time, for
example, can cost as much as P250,000. A TV ad campaign
can thus run to nearly a hundred million per station.
Most of
the candidates this year have turned to the Internet and
to podcasts in an effort to cut costs and to “even the
playing field.” But the Internet suffers from limited
access, despite the falling prices of PCs and laptops
and the drop in the cost of connections to the Web.
Romantics and optimists will tell you there’s the
proliferation of Internet cafés, but it’s doubtful if
most of their customers are lining up to access Noynoy
Aquino’s latest podcast or Ping Lacson’s web site.
Television not only has the reach. It also has the
captive audience that’s glued to that popular soap
during prime time into which a political ad can be
inserted with little risk of anyone’s turning the set
off. If television is thus the field of combat, where
who gets to sit in the Senate floor or in gallery will
be decided, those who intend to do battle in it better
come prepared with the huge budgets required.
While
it’s all very nice to point out how well-done some of
the early-bird politicians’ ads are, which of them are
ineffective, and which can stand some tweaking, the real
bottom line is the impact of this contest on us poor
folk who will have to live with such consequences as
Cesar Montano or Richard Gomez making it to the Senate.
If the
elections this year and in the coming years will be
decided by who has the most ads or the most effective
ones, it means the golden rule of politics all over
again—he who has the gold rules. Who has the means will
prevail, given the cost not only of airing TV ads but
also of producing them.
What
about those who don’t have the resources but who may
have the brains to actually craft the laws this country
needs? If it’s going to be a battle of the ads alone,
they won’t, or will hardly, count. Ergo, this year as in
years past, it will be money politics all over again
that will be in the winners’ circle.
Today
the key question when it comes to the media’s role in a
democracy is how the less moneyed but possibly brighter
and more principled can access the electorate to offset
the inherent advantage of those whose war chests run
into the billions.
Not only
can fair, relevant and accurate media coverage enable
those who can’t afford to pay hundreds of millions for
ads gain the name recognition Philippine politics puts a
premium on. Even more importantly can they inform voters
about their plans and programs through thoughtful media
coverage.
In 2004,
a Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility monitor of
media coverage of the campaign and elections that year
found that media, particularly TV, coverage was less
than thoughtful.
While
there were initial efforts to make the coverage of the
campaign meaningful, eventually the coverage regressed
into the usual videos of candidates’ out-of-town
sorties. There was a preponderance of reports on who was
leading whom in the surveys (otherwise known as the
horse race).
Television news also devoted entire segments to the
doings of celebrity or celebrity-associated candidates
(among them Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, whose TV ads
advantage was augmented by repeated coverage of his
“relationship” with a TV anchor).
The
focus on the two main “contenders” for the presidency
was to the exclusion of such candidates as Raul Roco.
(The rare times in which Roco was covered almost
exclusively had to do with his illness and departure for
the United States.)
There
was no coverage of the crucial Party-list elections
except in those instances when these groups were accused
of being communist fronts. Except for Mar Roxas, there
was very little coverage of other candidates for
senator, and zero on what the advocacies of the
candidates were—or if they had any at all. Mostly the
“issues” covered had nothing to do with platforms or
programs, and everything to do with such scandals as an
ex-wife’s accusation that a candidate had not been
providing child support.
Given
the quality of the 2004 coverage, it’s safe to say that,
except when they were shaped by fraud, the results were
at least partly the doing of the media. The shift from
print to TV ads during the campaign was already
pronounced even before 2004. But that is not as
important as how television—and the other media—will
cover the elections this year.
The two
major networks launched with much fanfare their
commitment to sustained coverage of the campaign and
elections this year. Let’s hope they mean “better,” and
that, in exchange for the increased revenues they’ll be
making this year, they will provide the public
information beyond what the ads provide.
Comments? Contact the author at teodoro@ info.com.ph.
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