Windbreak

From bitter experience, all broadcasters know that a routine political speech by a routine politician has a low-low rating in listenership. What is worse, the wind from a campaigning politico is often strong enough to blow his audience right over to a more entertaining station for the rest of the evening. Since political time is bought on a local, one-time basis, the stations get top dollar for each broadcast, but are still increasingly reluctant to sell time to such gnashing bores.

Gloomily surveying a horde of swarming hopefuls entered in Tennessee's impending primary elections, Nashville's WSM-TV and WLAC-TV have imposed strict limits on the total air time to be sold to any one candidate. WSM-TV ruled that the eight contestants for the Democratic nomination for Governor would be allocated a maximum of 45 minutes each between now and the primary on Aug. 7. Slightly more generous, WLAC-TV allowed them one hour of prime evening time, half an hour of nonpremium time. Candidates for the U.S. Senate and House will get the same allowance. Except for spot announcements, candidates for local and state legislative offices may buy no time at all. Nashville's third station, WSIX-TV, was turning down all candidates' bids for time until it decided on its own version of rationing.

Even under the restrictions, WSM-TV and WLAC-TV were committed to 33 intermittent hours of political haranguing if all eligible candidates bought all the time allocated them. Plainly, by commercial if not political standards, both stations considered even 33 hours too much.

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