Politics and Last-Minute Political Television

agement. 1 But the two most common strategies employed in the timing of political advertising involve the flat and the finish.2 Flat buy is purchasing television time so that advertising is distributed evenly throughout the campaign: it assumes that a candidate is relatively well known and that reinforcement of partisan support is warranted.3 The accelerated finish attempts to enhance interest in electoral politics that occurs just prior to election day; it represents a last-ditch effort to influence those who have not yet made up their minds but who are likely to vote nonetheless. Regardless of the strategy, last-minute television exposure is assumed to be important to a campaign. Campaign advertising is not the only kind of political programming on television during the last minute of the campaign. Network news departments regularly televise last-minute programming including election specials, election projections, panel discussions and interviews along with the regular nightly news coverage, in order to capitalize on the apparent last-minute surge of interest in electoral politics. In so doing, networks hope to attract advertising dollars and to fulfill public service obligations by providing citizens with information necessary to discharge democratic obligations at the same time.4 Considering the amount of time and money spent by campaigners and networks on last-minute broadcasts in attempts to influence or inform viewers, it is important to determine to what extent political programming (1) changes varieties of political behavior; (2) constitutes merely another source of entertainment; or (3) is ignored by regular television audiences. The purpose of this paper is to assess the influences of a variety of last-minute campaign advertising and public affairs programming on viewers who may participate in political activities.