Jonathan Storm: TV gears up for the conventions

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, August, 2008 | by Jonathan Storm Inquirer Columnist

As the Olympic stragglers pack up after a stunning two weeks in Beijing, TV news hawks gird for their own grueling two weeks of back-to-back political coverage at the presidential nominating conventions starting tomorrow. Viewers have a panoply of choices, from ConLite (one-hour-a-night coverage by ABC, CBS and NBC) to the no-nonsense minutiae of C-Span, to the nonstop nincompoopery of the cable news networks, which have gone into full song-and-dance mode.

PBS will offer three hours of coverage nightly. Presidential election politics offer a rich vein of ratings, and advertising revenue, for cable news outlets, and the conventions are a highlight. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have been falling all over each other to scrounge every last eyeball, each trying to persuade viewers...