Yes We Can! And Now Back to 'The Hills'
The campaign season is about to get a bit more abrasive, particularly for fans of TRL and Tila Tequila.
Just this week, MTV, the center of faux 'music' programming, lifted its ban on showing political ads, which had been in place since its inception in the early 1980s.
From TV Week:
As recently as the presidential primaries this year, MTV had refused all political ads, even as it has heavily promoted its “Choose or Lose” get out the vote effort.
MTV had held out while other MTV Networks siblings were willing to feed at the political advertising trough. VH1, Comedy Channel and Spike TV were willing to accept political ads, according to an MTV Networks spokesman.
Cable networks are attracting more political ads. The Bush campaign four years ago bought national cable on a dozen channels. This year most of the political ads on cable have been on cable news networks. One sought-after network—Lifetime—still declines to take political ads.
Now all the MTV Networks that aren’t aimed at kids will accept political ads...
Jeannie Kedas, EVP-communications for MTV’s music networks, said the change is effective immediately and reflects the importance of the youth vote.
The Hollywood blogosphere is already abuzz with certain annoying celebrities' (coughcoughScarlettJohanssonSusanSarandon) public endorsements of Obama and this looks to only amplify his youthful base support. From Jossip:
...MTV is going to cash in. Hard.
...[a]nd Obama, more so than McCain, understands how to reach the youth vote. He’s been doing it online for months. Now, with MTV ready to accept his bucks, he’ll do it on TV as well. In fact, Obama’s campaign already tried buying airtime on MTV, but was rebuffed because of their policy; MTV’s flip-flop all but guarantees Obama will spend some of his millions on TV time each month with the network, which is a win-win for everybody: Obama gets to reach his target audience, and MTV gets to subsidize some of the effects of the advertising recession we’ve been hearing so much about.
It's only a matter of time now before John McCain starts cashing in (or not) on Heidi Montag's support. Will MTV help or hurt Obama? Only time will tell.
Here's the first Obama ad shown on MTV:
