A kick in the Baracks

I've been hearing a lot about this Barack Obama guy recently; apparently he's in some kind of race to be the next leader of America. Which is sad, really, because persuading hardcore right-wingers that a black guy with a foreign sounding name really is in charge will cost this country dearly in resources that would be better used elsewhere.

I'm going to need a lot of persuading myself, especially after last night's shameful hijacking of three - count them - channels for a half hour long, self-indulgent polemic which was as selfish as it was destructive. I'm not talking about the message - that would be too superficial - but rather what it stood for in a broader sense. I'm talking about having the temerity to buck one of America's proudest traditions and undermining the backbone of entertainment revenue.

Quality programming like America's thinnest sixteen year-old millionaire doesn't grow on trees. It has to be paid for by two main revenue streams. Firstly the networks will buy the rights to the shows. Secondly the public will phone and text in votes on premium rate lines. Both of these require a sacrifice on the part of the viewer; on the one hand they must sit through several advert breaks an hour and then when they aren't watching ads they must load up their cellphone bill with votes to decide the outcome of the programme series. It's a tried and tested approach to which audiences have become accustomed. And it's dangerous to buck the status quo.

Unfortunately, Obama doesn't understand this as evidenced by his half hour long programme last night, which did not break once to let his audience process his message while restful images of packaged sweets and prescription drugs drifted across the screen. Sure, technically the whole thing was a commercial but it didn't feel much like one to me - what was he selling? The opportunity to vote for him? He didn't even mean on a premium rate line! Obama simply doesn't understand the economics of commercial television.

Not content with wasting his own money however, B.H.O. is trying to kill off H.B.O. and its venerable sisters by letting a very profitable cat out of a very tightly closed bag: American audiences don't have to have ads every 15 minutes. In fact, they may grow to like it. And if Americans don't watch commercials, we'll all be eating rats out of broken hubcaps by Christmas.