They are probably the least popular “programmes” on TV. Party Political Broadcasts probably serve little purpose – it is simply that the alternatives are worse.
How many undecided voters tune in and have their minds swayed?
How many opponents of a party tune in to find out what the other lot think?
About the only good thing which can be said for them is that they are better in principal than paid for political TV advertising.
Viewers in England are currently suffering a nightly dose of them ahead of May’s local elections. The switch off on BBC One at 6.55pm does no good to The One Show.
In the UK, TV advertising by political parties is not allowed although they can advertise in newspapers and online – subject to various rules concerning total expenditure.
If you have ever been in the USA during an election campaign, you may have had the misfortune to see political TV advertising – more often than not throwing mud at opponents rather than saying anything positive about the candidate or party the advert is supposedly promoting.
So you can see why there is an argument that Party Political Broadcasts are at least fairer in principle.
But given the fact that so few people would positively want to watch them, they are something of a nightmare for schedulers.
In the old days, there was a convention that these broadcasts went out simultaneously on all three channels – usually at 9pm.
Since the early 80s though, they have been scheduled in a different way.
The current arrangements go back about 20 years.
BBC One shows them at around 6.55pm – eating into the durations of both the national and regional news. ITV 1 shows them at 6.25pm at the expense of the regional news.
BBC Two stopped screening them about 5 years ago – presumably when BBC Scotland lost the ability to opt on BBC Two, as care is taken to make sure broadcasts are relevant to the appropriate nation. In Scotland there would be a clear problem if the three UK parties had broadcasts on BBC Two but not the SNP.
Channel 4 and Channel 5 do not screen PPBs except during General Election campaigns.
The effect of the current scheduling arrangements on the two big channels is painful.
It basically cuts the time available for news and cuts the audience for The One Show and the ITV Evening News.
Viewers do vote – with their remotes.
But if you accept that PPBs are less undesirable than the alternatives, where else could they go?
5.55pm or 10.40pm would mean they were shown out of peak – less disruptive but also less viewed.
Showing then simultaneously at say 10pm on the two big channels and delaying the news would simply drive viewers elsewhere.
BBC One could conceivably tweak things so that PPBs came between The One Show and EastEnders but again there are problems.
A shorter duration for The One Show for a broadcast not being shown in a particular nation would leave a very long time to collapse into trails.
ITV 1 would face similar issues if it proposed running PPBs at about 7.25pm at the expense of a few minutes of national news.
It is tempting to come to the conclusion that PPBs should just be abandoned. Personally I wish this could happen.
But good luck to broadcasters trying to persuade politicians who value having a bit of airtime free from journalists asking them questions and holding them to account.
Or could political TV advertising with tight rules and restrictions – e.g., limited expenditure, no negative campaigning – be allowed?
There are no easy answers.
The undesirability of PPBs does not make the alternatives less unpalatable.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Party Political Broadcast graphic. COPYRIGHT: BBC.