TV

Major political candidates spend more on television advertising than on any other facet of their campaigns. And currently, the world of television is undergoing a sea change. More people watch cable today than broadcast and by the end of the year about a third of all homes will have a DVR, with 60 percent of those skipping all television commercials. Meanwhile, more and more people are watching commercial TV on the web. These are amongst the many changes which compel us to Reimagine Video and signal The End of Broadcast.

To discuss all this, the New Politics Institute and NDN are bringing together leading private sector practitioners to discuss the profound and historic ways the ruling media of politics - television - is changing and how new technologies must be mastered to reach new audiences.

Joining us will be:

Todd Juenger, leader of TiVo's Audience Research and Measurement business, which provides detailed insight into how TiVo viewers consume and interact with television programming and advertisements.

Tara Walpert, President of Visible World, Inc., a company that uses new tools to customize and target advertisements so that the right message reaches the right audience at the right time.

Evan Tracey, the founder and chief operating officer of Campaign Media Analysis Group, the leading custom media research company for politics and public affairs advertising expenditure data.

Simon Rosenberg, President and Founder of NDN and the New Politics Institute.

We believe this event will provide you with a practical understanding of how to navigate the changing world of television and how to make the most effective use of new technologies. So please join us on Thursday, April 24, at 12 p.m., in the ballroom at the Phoenix Park Hotel, 520 N. Capitol St., NW, Washington, DC.

Please make sure to RSVP here. If you have questions, please contact Courtney Markey at 202-544-9200 or cmarkey@ndn.org.

Finally, be sure to hold the date, May 9, for The New Tools and New Audiences of Campaign 2008, a day-long event on how to best harness the potential power of new technologies and demographic shifts.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "The Barack barrage has begun." The Obama camp began airing ads in Philadelphia on Friday, which will run through today, March 24th, the voter registration deadline. The Inquirer goes on to report that the Obama campaign spent around $330,000 on this latest slate of ads.

"Opportunity", a minute-long spot, is aptly titled and mostly autobiographical. Using the same words as appeared in his speech on race, Obama shines the spotlight on his grandparents, painting the picture of a working class couple; his grandfather served in the army, while his grandmother worked on bomber assembly line and neither had much money. The Obama campaign is no doubt attempting to appeal to the large number of working class voters in Pennsylvania, which have thus far been a key voting block for Hillary.

Obama is also running two 30-second ads, "Carry" and "Toughest." The former focuses primarily on Obama's ability to be bipartisian and features Illinois Republican Senator Kirk Dillard, while the latter promotes Obama's push for ethics reform.

As a little bonus, here are a couple of radio ads the Obama campaign has been running in Pennsylvania. Click here and here to listen.

I have yet to see reports that Hillary has started running ads in Pennsylvania, but as soon as she does I'll be sure to post them.