GOP Gets Time on Cable to Showcase Its Convention

Fed up with dwindling network coverage of the political conventions, the Republican Party announced Wednesday it will air its San Diego gathering next month on televangelist Pat Robertson’s Family Channel to show it “straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour told reporters that along with using the Family Channel to provide an “unfiltered” version of the GOP’s Aug. 12-15 convention, time has been purchased on the USA Network cable channel for morning previews of each night’s events.

The $1.5 million in television air time, which Barbour said was purchased at standard rates, will be paid for by the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau. Barbour said the bureau believes the telecasts will help promote San Diego.

Production and other related costs will be shared by the city’s convention bureau and the GOP convention committee, he said.

“Our mission is to let people see the convention unfiltered,” Barbour added, noting that political news is “interpreted and analyzed” by the regular media.

The Republican use of the two cable channels comes at a time when the non-cable networks are scaling back their live coverage of political conventions. However, viewers wanting to see the conventions still will be offered hours of coverage on other channels--C-SPAN, MSNBC and CNN all will have extended coverage of the weeklong festivities.

Such coverage appears at this point to be enough for the Democrats, who meet in Chicago Aug. 26-29 to renominate President Clinton. A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee said Wednesday that the party has no plans to buy extra time because “we think that the convention will be adequately covered by the press.”

Barbour said a major reason for the Republican desire for additional coverage is that some of the all-news channels even refuse to air long videos that increasingly are part of the convention programs, arguing that such productions are really extended political advertisements.

The convention coverage on the Family Channel would use GOP leaders as broadcasters. They are to include Reps. Jennifer Dunn of Washington state, J.C. Watts of Oklahoma and Henry Bonilla of Texas, as well as Joe Galli, chairman of the College Republicans.

“Instead of having Eric Engberg [the CBS political commentator], you’re going to have Joe Galli. Instead of having Katie Couric [of NBC’s “Today” show], you’ll have Jennifer Dunn. Instead of having Bryant Gumbel [also “Today”], you’ll have J.C. Watts, and instead of having Dan Rather [CBS News anchor], you’ll have Henry Bonilla,” Bonilla said.

Barbour said these Republicans “won’t be addressing the concerns of families from the removed perspective of a reporter who lives in Washington or New York--they’ll talk about them from their hometown perspective.”

There will be some aspects of the convention that might be missing from the GOP’s take on its political extravaganza, such as news conferences from those protesting outside the convention site.

Details on a potential platform fight on abortion rights the week before the actual convention also isn’t likely to appear on the GOP’s show, Barbour acknowledged.

Republicans have said in recent days that they hope to turn their convention into a television spectacular, “a political variety show,” as one GOP source put it. No speeches will be longer than 10 minutes, except for those by the nominees for president and vice president.

Barbour said that it was hard to determine how many viewers the convention would actually draw among the 65 million households that have access to Family Channel and USA cable. But he said the Republicans planned an advertising blitz to alert viewers about their version of the convention.

“We’re telling people, don’t get snookered by the networks,” he said. “Get it straight from the horse’s mouth.”