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Online Democratic ‘Mashup’ Draws 1 Million
An experimental online “mashup” — a build-your-own Democratic presidential debate — attracted more than 1 million viewers in the last 10 days.
But one of the most popular participants wasn’t a candidate.
Four questions were posed to each of eight candidates, one question being a “wild card” posed by comedian Bill Maher. His questions were watched 42% of the time — more than the others, which were on Iraq, education and healthcare and were posed by PBS host Charlie Rose.
Maher quizzed the hopefuls about topics including the Ten Commandments; marijuana legalization; the relative dangers of sugar, coal dust and terrorism; and the climate-changing effect of cows.
Yahoo, HuffingtonPost.com and Slate.com conceived the format as a way to give online viewers the ability to build a debate with video blocks of each candidate answering questions.
The clips were recorded two weeks ago and were posted Sept. 13 at debates.news.yahoo.com. Viewers can choose the candidates they want to see and hear, match them against a rival, and compare and contrast.
“We started off doing this as a public service,” said Neeraj Khemlani, vice president of programming at Yahoo and producer of the debate. “It was in my mind, ‘Let’s go and try to help undecided voters.’ ”
As of the weekend, 1.1 million people had visited. Of those, 429,000 were ages 18 to 34, according to data compiled by Yahoo. TV debates still get the biggest audiences. An Aug. 19 Democratic debate on ABC’s “This Week,” for instance, attracted more than 2.8 million viewers.
But organizers of the online debate say that its audience is more engaged and that the format puts the content in the viewers’ hands.
Maher’s questions were designed to catch the candidates off guard. He asked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, “Why should Americans vote for someone who can be fooled by George Bush?” He asked New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson if voters are fickle “spoiled brats.”
“People love the fact that they saw the candidates being genuinely surprised,” said the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington. “That’s something that really works online — the fact that their answers were completely unpredictable.”
The most viewed candidate? Clinton. Of all the video clips viewers watched, 35% were hers. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was next with 25%, followed by former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at 13%.
After Maher’s questions, the subject of Iraq received the most attention — 35% of the clips watched addressed the war. Healthcare was next with 15%, followed by education with 9%.
The Yahoo data show that women were more interested in education and healthcare than were men. Men were more interested in Maher’s questions than women were.
Audiences ages 35 and older were more interested in healthcare and Iraq, and those younger than 35 focused on education and the wild-card question.
In Iowa, which is scheduled to hold the first contest of the presidential election season, viewers showed the most interest in Iraq — 41% of the video clips watched in the state dealt with the war.
The organizers are working to see whether Republicans will agree to the same format. Another wild-card question, perhaps?
“We have to decide that, because obviously the element of surprise only works once,” Huffington said.
Popularity: 1% [?]
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One Response to “Online Democratic ‘Mashup’ Draws 1 Million”
Posted on 24 Sep 2007 at 6:31 pm by john polifronio
To Bill Maher
Bill’s question, embarrassing to Clinton, but an utterly dumb-assed question, fails to take into account, that Hillary is and was, at the time she voted to approve Bush’s Iraq invasion plans, a politician. She voted for Bush’s plans, with the proviso that he follow traditional and internationally recognized diplomatic approaches to prevent war, long before he initiated an attack on Iraq. He didn’t; he lied, and he lied about everything; we all know that; and Maher should face up to this reality. At the time Hillary made this vote, what, precisely were Maher’s views on Bush’s plans? I suspect he was also slightly inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. If this doesn’t convince you of the shrewdness of Clinton’s vote, consider that, at the time, Bush was an immensely popular president. He would have gotten passage for his invasion plans anyway, and Hillary took the wisest course, because she knew that there was a slim chance that Bush would forgo war, except in the event that all diplomatic efforts failed, but, also, that if Bush really intended to attack without any reasonable provocation, and on the basis of lies told, he would certainly have seen to it, that his war vote would pass. Does Maher expect Hillary to vote against a hugely popular president, in opposition to a vote, where she had little reason to assume that Bush would act recklessly and precipitously, where she could not have known that Bush told complete lies, and where she knew a yes vote would prevail in any case? Give me a break. But Maher, with all the haste and bravado and brainlessness of a “bull in a China shop,” aims to hurt Hillary’s chances in the coming election. Bill has the brains, but he’s living too comfortably and is enjoying the perks of celebs too much for his own good. He really needs to use the brains nature gave him, even if it discomfits him, more than he’d like, once in a while.
jp
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