Cable networks crowd campaign trail

By Gail Schiller

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Now that the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have launched the presidential race, non-news networks are piling on to document an election season seen as just too entertaining to pass up.

While outlets such as MTV and Comedy Central have long been using campaigns for programming fodder, newcomers to the presidential race are hoping TV viewers will cast their ballots with them -- especially given that the writers strike has shut down most original TV programming.

"This election is gearing up to be perhaps the most interesting TV series of the season, and everyone technically has the rights to it," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.

Among the new entrants: the gay-themed Logo, women's cable channel WE tv, the Independent Film Channel (IFC), young men's channel Spike, and country music outlet CMT.

Logo entered the fray in August with a first-of-its-kind on-air forum on issues of importance to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community with Democratic presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson.

WE tv has announced a national grassroots initiative aimed at registering more than 1 million women to vote while educating them on key issues. Kelly Ripa, LeAnn Rimes and Kerry Washington have signed on for the campaign.

FIGHTERS GET POLITICAL

Spike TV has launched a voter registration drive in partnership with Ultimate Fighting Championship that includes public service announcements with top UFC stars. CMT also will feature election-related issues content, though its plans are not yet nailed down.

IFC will keep it indie, with documentary-style reporting aimed at independent voters.

"We're trying to bring issues to bear and talk about things that most notably don't get covered in presidential election coverage because most of the networks seem most interested in pitting the extremes of the two sides against each other," said Evan Shapiro, the channel's executive vp and GM.

The cable networks declined comment on what they are spending on election initiatives, but IFC said it is making a "big investment," and MTV said its presidential dialogues -- while less costly than ABC or CNN debates -- were among the five most expensive specials produced by MTV News last year, including the Video Music Awards and the MTV Movie Awards.

MTV is making a big multimedia push this time around. It has recruited 51 young citizen journalists -- one from each state and Washington D.C. -- to present the issues that matter to young people through text, photos, video and audio.

"We will have more content partly because we're going to be soliciting a lot more from our audience, which we weren't doing at all in 2004," said Ian Rowe, vp public affairs at MTV. "Consumer-generated is definitely the innovation this year."

The network also has other election-related programming in development for 2008 such as TV series, longform documentaries and issue-based specials, Rowe said.

RATINGS BOOST