Posted on 07/05/2009 10:13:02 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Obama and TV Networks Forge Relationship Updated: Sunday, 05 Jul 2009, 1:00 PM EDT Published : Sunday, 05 Jul 2009, 12:59 PM EDT
By DAVID BAUDER AP Television Writer NEW YORK - Even President Barack Obama, a gleam in his eye as he talked at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner two weeks ago, seemed to recognize the special relationship he's forged with TV networks in the opening months of his administration.
"A few nights ago I was up tossing and turning and trying to figure out exactly what to say," he said. "Finally, when I couldn't get back to sleep, I rolled over and asked Brian Williams what he thought."
The reference to the NBC anchor and host of the prime-time "Inside the Obama White House" special this spring drew loud laughter.
There's no denying that broadcast networks and the president have occasionally worked for their mutual benefit: Obama gets public platforms for his ideas and the networks get programming that delivers strong ratings at a time when that's hard to come by.
"Inside the Obama White House" was a hit, costing relatively little to produce, for a network that's starved for hits. The two-part series was rerun the same week that it originally aired.
Two of the three most-watched episodes of "60 Minutes" last TV season were devoted to Obama, topped by the 25.1 million people who watched Steve Kroft conduct the first postelection interview with the president-elect in November. An interview with Obama's brain trust that aired a week earlier drew 18.5 million viewers, and another Obama interview in March had 17 million viewers. The season average for the CBS newsmagazine was 14.3 million, Nielsen Media Research said.
CBS' "Face the Nation" had its biggest audience of the year when Obama appeared on March 29.
The dry subject matter of ABC's prime-time discussion with the president on health care last month meant it wasn't a big hit, but it still did better in its time slot than anything else ABC had put on in six weeks. The "Nightline" that completed the discussion that night beat David Letterman and Conan O'Brien in the ratings.
"Obama should change his middle name from Hussein to Nielsen," said Gail Shister, a writing instructor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The idea of a president who grabs ratings still seems strange, as does the notion a network will need him. Yet Obama has been reliable when so many other things that broadcasters have been trying are failures.
Strong public interest in the president and his policies explains why so many people in television, magazines and newspapers want to speak to him, said Mark Whitaker, Washington bureau chief for NBC News.
Jon Banner, veteran executive producer of ABC's "World News," said the White House has clearly sought to make Obama more available to networks than recent presidents have been. Obama is personally popular, more so than his policies at this point, and he's his own best salesman, he said.
"We will take every opportunity that's given to us to question the president about the plans he has," Banner said. "I would not turn any of these opportunities down."
The network says it does not play favorites. It said the Bush administration turned down several invitations for town hall-style meetings similar to the one ABC recently organized for Obama.
Obama's critics have raised questions of fairness. Announcement of the ABC plans set Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele in motion trying to raise money to buy airtime for a dissenting opinion on health care.
"The mainstream media has finally decided to dispense with the pointless denial of favorable coverage of the Obama administration," Steele wrote in a memo to Republicans. ABC countered that it brought in people with disparate points of view to question Obama on health care.
Still, Obama received plenty of prime-time minutes to state his case, and ABC televised parts of "Good Morning America" and "World News" from the White House, too.
Whitaker said NBC took advantage of its access filming "Inside the Obama White House" to film two Williams interviews with the president. News organizations shouldn't be criticized for spending time with a president, but for how they are using that time, he said.
Some of it played like a valentine, however: See how hard the new president's staff works! It's a good bet Obama doesn't take orders and goes out to buy staff members hamburgers too often when the cameras aren't rolling. Williams also asked Obama about O'Brien, a clip that allowed for some high-level promotion of the new "Tonight" show host.
While NBC has taken similar insider looks at past presidents, they got one prime-time hour. Obama got four.
"Are you going to blame NBC for giving that much time to a very exclusive, interesting and revealing look behind the scenes at the White House? Compared to what, more of `The Biggest Loser'?" Whitaker said.
The mutual star-making machinery may not last forever. As Obama holds more news conferences -- many of them dry and lawyerly -- the viewership is going down. Networks like exclusive opportunities to do things their competitors haven't, but are no longer happy running prime-time
news conferences.
"Some of the blockbuster ratings appeal is starting to wear off a little," Whitaker said.
news conferences.
"Some of the blockbuster ratings appeal is starting to wear off a little," Whitaker said.
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EDITOR'S NOTE -- David Bauder can be reached at dbauder(at)ap.org
I love your personal page!
We the people are already sick of his BS. I knew what he was before he became President. You are who you associate with in life. He associated with Wright, Ayers, and the like. Not a group of people you would say love America.
"you can say that again"
"Oops you just did ."
I guess you could call it a “special relationship.” Obama bends over, they kiss his butt. Obama says anything, they praise it as the best ever. Obama institutes radically left wing polices, they claim them to be the best polices of any president ever. Michelle prepares to go to Moscow, they claim she will bring glamor. Michele shows up in a Goodwill rejected outfit, they claim she is the fashion trendsetter for the planet. Michelle and Barrack use taxpayer money for a private flight to NYC and a night on the town and not a word of protest. Yes, I guess you could call it a special relationship. Or you could call it an the most stunning failure of the media ever to call a President to account for anything, not a single critical comment, nothing. Yep, its special alright.
"And I Said Just Spoon With Me A Little While Longer Please!"
>>> special relationship <<<<<
I’m rather enjoying that the covers are being pulled-back (so to speak) on the “special relationship” that Zer0 has with the “objective journalists” inside the Beltway.
As Katherine Weymouth of the ComPost has so perfectly illustrated, these “special relationships” among the press and the government in DC are like those of a 15th Street streetwalker and her Johns; the Connecticut Ave Madam and her “upscale clientele”; and the Georgetown callgirl and her “regulars.”
I’m hoping that folks across America might finally see what many locals have known for a very long time.
DC is a whorehouse.
“The Obama Presidency: What's worked so far”
A thirty second spot should be enough.
Well, it says something about the state of our news media when Obama, a Communist-Muslim-homosexual, says he’s in bed with Brian Williams and they all laugh.
And now AP tells the story as if it were some kind of honor to be in bed with Obama. Then the article basically goes on to say: “OK, we all want to get in bed with you too!”
Is the proper word forge, or is it merge?
In this case, “relationship” means the networks’ collective noses are shaped like the crack of Zero’s @$$.
Obama’s critics have raised questions but get no answers only BS.
They misspelled consistantly fellated one another
Hope that helps.
That is why David Bauder and the Associated Press, et al, have NO CREDIBILITY LEFT!!!
This article is just an EXCUSE!
“Forge Relationship”?
It like incest and the networks are up obammys ass.
where was michele?
David Bauder has been a national entertainment writer for the Associated Press since 1996. He’s covered the Emmys, the Grammys, two Woodstock festivals and innumerable bad TV shows. He’s also responsible for covering the business of television and its news divisions. Bauder, 45, lives in Croton-on-Hudson, NY with his wife and two children.
David Bauder
AP: Could Palin Flap Help Letterman’s Ratings?
Have the broadcast networks gone too far with their obvious infatuation with presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama?
If the Associated Press is starting to think so, maybe the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz was right on Sunday when he warned “Reliable Sources” viewers that “there could be a big backlash against news organizations if this trend continues.”
AP Just Noticed ‘Iraq War Disappears’ From TV
Apparently, AP’s television writer David Bauder just noticed that the Iraq war has been canceled as TV fare lately. Maybe Mr. Bauder should have been reading Newsbusters because our own Rich Noyes noticed how the war had vanished from TV all the way back on Feb. 28th.
Of course, Bauder is trying to spin this neglect as mere “fatigue,” as if the war were a fad that people have just grown tired of as opposed to TV losing interest because the war no longer fits the we-can’t-win template that the media had been used to following with their coverage.
http://newsbusters.org/people/david-bauder
AP’s David Bauder holds some kind of weird torch for CNBC. That is, it takes some real effort to find anything admirable in the fact that CNBC has run the same documentary on Wal-Mart 44 times over the last two years. That’s right: 44 times. That’s more times than Bill O’Reilly has called someone a “pinhead,” more times than CNN has declared the Republicans to be “broken.” And revealingly, that much-rerun doc still rates as one of CNBC’s highest-rated shows. Now what does that tell you about the quality of CNBC’s programming?
That’s a wicked question that Bauder does his best to avoid answering, as he slops praise over various obviously liberal-leaning documentaries being cranked out by Josh Howard—the same Josh Howard who, it will be remembered, was one of those fired from CBS in the “Rathergate” scandal of 2004. Howard might not have much of a reputation as a legitimate journalist, but he still has a following among liberal journalists.
Of course, it’s not just Bauder, sittin’ in a tree with CNBC. Others, too, in the MSM are in love with CNBC; consider this puffjob on Pamela Thomas-Graham—you could read the whole thing and never know that she got pushed out of CNBC, on account of low ratings.
So what is that’s so great about CNBC in the eyes of the MSM? Actually, maybe nothing, except for this one thing: CNBC & Co. ARE NOT FOX NEWS! Which is to say, in the minds of Bauder et al., how bad can they be?
Gee, they wouldn't have turned you down because of the fact that you would have brought your own hand-picked liberal audience with you, now would they?
There is nothing like a propaganda machine! An dedicated and organized means to control public opinion and directives!
If he had some thing to say that did or did not make sense, let the medias do their job and report!
Obama is a boil on the butt of America, and the media is the pus in that boil.
David Bauder is married to Rachel Leon (who kept her name for obvious reasons) is the associate director for public policy at the Hunger Action Network of New York State, a nonprofit social-service program in Albany
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Excite News - MSNBC finding rerun is wise prime-time strategy
By DAVID BAUDER
MSNBC will continue airing Keith Olbermann’s talk show twice each weeknight in prime time
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What’s David Bauder smoking?
AP article: Equating Leno’s 1995 chiding of Hugh Grant to Letterman calling Palin slutty?!?
Eric M. Larson
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David Bauder / Associated Press:
Huffington Post launches journalism venture
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Growing up in a fishbowl | David Bauder ...Jul 4, 2009 ...
US President Barack Obama’s face brightened as he looked up and saw his eight-year-old daughter Sasha on the White House’s Truman Balcony.
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USATODAY.com - 11/04/2008
David Bauder, AP Television Writer. Two Emmys for best comedy, an Emmy for best actress and a star turn as Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” ...
I heard michelle obama has developed a rather large drinking problem.
We're supposed to be enlightened by questions such as "Is this the best idea you have ever had, Lord Obama, or have you had a better idea before?"?
any truth to it? I’ve been wondering why we have never been shown a picture of her mother who lives with them in the white house.... when they want to hide stuff, they sure are good at it!
“that’s not a pillow!”
gross..:)
gross..:)
Oops!
The media is no longer in the news business, they are in the entertainment business. Next they’ll be giving Oscars for the best pretend news reporter.
We get lectured regularly about the separation of church and state while the left, make no effort to proclaim the virtues of the new allegiance with the State and Media.
All the Media is to the Left, is the Church of no Religion.
So what can you take away from this message?
Do as I SAY, not as I DO, AND like...or else.
Indeed ,it is.
Sickening to see the infection taking hold in our country.
WHO...R...U???
Just like Eliot Spitzer forged a relationship with his whore.
Bauder’s using bad logic here. If the networks obsession with Obama were a function of ratings, they would have Palin on every night ... and they’d get a better demographic to boot.
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