TV and Politics: Picking Debate Winners: Instantaneous Ratings

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Picking Debate Winners:
Instantaneous Ratings

Volume VI, Number 41 October 20, 1986

After each high profile televised confrontation, the basic question that viewers argue over is "Who won?"
Using computer technology, two stations had typical viewers choose winners and losers in debates. In fact, the candidates were rated continuously throughout their appearances.
This was a distinct alternative to the usual mix of campaign officials, professors, and man-on-the street interviews for debate reactions.

In Seattle, KOMO-TV's News Director, Jim Boyer, provided a very interesting method of getting a definitive answer: a focus group of 50 neutral voters continuously rated the candidates on a computerized feedback system throughout a Senate debate.

And --- how do you do a debate when one candidate (usually the dominant frontrunner) won't appear?
In Baltimore, Democrat William Donald Schaefer refused to go on television head-to-head with his primary opponent for the party's gubernatorial nomination.
However, WJZ-TV's News Director, Natalea Brown, decided to do a full show without his active cooperation.
Brown created a unique mix of taped candidate answers and reactions from an invited group of voters who rated the politicians by also using a computerized system.

Instant analysis in Seattle

The Seattle firm of Fujii, Fulton, and Wheeler contacted Boyer about using its hand-held computer to evaluate potential anchor talent.
"They convinced me to go over and look at how the machine worked," said Boyer.
He decided to use the "Consumer Choice Analyzer System" not for talent, but to grade the performance of the candidates a Senate debate.

Boyer didn't let the candidates or anyone involved with the debate know in advance what his plans were.

The person who assembled the audience for their regular afternoon talk show found 50 people to be the station's audience.
"They all had to be registered voters and they had to be either neutral or only slightly in favor of one candidate or the other. I didn't want any partisans," Boyer stressed.

The audience sat in a large conference room and watched the debate as it happened.
During the 30 second rebuttal times, they were asked who had won that question. They'd lock in their responses.
While the candidates were answering questions, the watchers manipulated the machine indicating whether they were persuaded by what they were hearing.
"We were able to get a real time, second-by-second read-out on how persuasive each candidate was," said Boyer.
When they'd hear the question, they would lock in whether they thought the question was very important or not. This showed what the hot issues were.

The computerized report card

In the report on the project, the second-by-second responses were displayed on the screen so viewers could see whether the candidates were making points.

As it turned out, the station's focus group thought the Republican incumbent won the debate. But when asked, 'If the election were held tomorrow, who would you vote for?' the majority said they'd vote for the Democratic challenger.

"They said the incumbent was smooth and knew what he was talking about. But, in the final analysis they said they liked the challenger better because he was a nicer guy," explained Boyer.

He felt it was a much more accurate reflection of how the candidates performed than most debate analysis.
"It was an absolute scientific poll of those 50 people --- we knew exactly how they felt. We didn't say it was anything other than that," he stressed.

The firm that developed the device pitched it to be used for almost everything. But, he felt you didn't need that second-by-second response for most things.
"It is most effective only in situations where you need to measure a bunch of things rapidly. I wanted to find out how well these guys were coming across and to get the gut reactions from people," he explained.

Picking Maryland's governor

WJZ also found hand-held computers an effective tool when the popular mayor of Baltimore, William Donald Schaefer, refused to debate his primary opponent in the race to be the Democratic nominee for Governor.

"The mayor, who was by far the leading candidate, flatly refused to debate. It was a major election, and one of the candidates was saying, 'I won't play," explained WJZ's Natalea Brown.
For her, it was like a red flag.
"We decided we would do something anyway and we took up the challenge to find a show which would get information to people, yet still have the energy of a debate," she said

Building The Broadcast

Brown and her people created a program which they hoped would show where the candidates stood on the issues most important to voters.

The steps:

1. The issues were determined through a statewide poll. This showed them what viewers were concerned about, regardless of the themes which the candidates' media managers were trying to radiate.

2. Key questions were solicited from the involved special interest groups.
"We said, 'You tell us what questions we should be asking the candidates because this is your area of expertise.' We recorded them asking those questions," the WJZ News Director explained.

3. The candidates' answers were collected on tape. Over two months at news conferences and during interviews, they built up a library of the campaigners' responses.
"The questions were asked verbatim of each candidate," she said.
The answers were all carefully logged and held.

4. Issue explanation reports. Reporters were assigned to do summary reports on the status of each of the key issues. These gave viewers a quick overview on the topic.

5. A studio audience of voters was selected. Some of these were from the groups most concerned about the specific issues.
"We wanted to get opinionated people. We wanted a cross-section," explained Brown.

The Show Itself

When the executives and producers finally put their broadcast together, this was the basic format of their candidates' "debate:"

The overview of the issue played first. The special interest question ran next. Then the candidates answered it. Audience's immediate reaction.

"The audience got to grade the candidates. Not who they'd vote for, but how they did on each issue," said Brown.

At the end of the show, the audience was asked how they would vote.
"It came up exactly the way our statewide poll had turned out," she said.

Ironically, the audience gave challenger Stephen Sachs the highest grade point, but they voted for Mayor Schaefer.

Brown felt the program was able to do several things a debate doesn't do.

--- It let viewers hear the candidates' views side-by-side.
"Very often on debates, the candidates don't even have to answer the questions they're
asked," Brown said.

--- It focused in on the issues most important to voters.
"Because we were able to do editing, we were able to find out what issues people really
cared about and then we stuck to those issues," she said.

--- The background pieces gave viewers added information.
"It helped viewers put the candidates' responses in perspective," added Brown.