Party
election broadcasts, as distinct from political advertising, are usually described
as "free". But all this means is that the parties themselves do not
pay for the time that is allocated to them. This leaves unanswered two
questions:
- Who does pay for the
airtime?
- And who pays to make the
programme itself?
In
practice there are two possible answers to the first question: either the
broadcaster is required to provide the time for free, or the government or
electoral authority will purchase the time from the broadcasting company. For
public broadcasters, the answers will almost always be the first. The charter
or regulations governing the public broadcaster will require them to provide
this service. In some cases a similar public service obligation might exist for
private broadcasting licensees. But in the latter case it is more common that a
supervisory body will buy the time on the parties' behalf. This is what happens
in Mexico, for example, where the Federal Electoral Institute buys and
allocates 15 minutes a month of television and radio time for each party.
In
some exceptional circumstances, a third party pays. In Afghanistan for the 2004
and 2005 elections, direct access production and airtime was arranged, managed
and paid-for by donors.
The
second question - who pays for the programme content itself - is altogether
more complex. Usually, the answer is the party, although this in itself may be
constrained by legal limits on campaign spending. Costs can be kept relatively
low by the use of sympathetic personnel - most famously the Hollywood film
directors John Schlesinger, Hugh Hudson and Mike Newell, who have made party
election broadcasts for the main parties in Britain (although in each case the
saving on the director's fee was probably more than offset by the high
production costs).
If the
party makes its own election broadcasts, this clearly favours the richer
parties.
An
alternative solution is for the public broadcaster to put production facilities
at the parties' disposal. This was the approach in the early days of party
political broadcasts, which were studio-bound and really just an extension of
the old-fashioned ministerial address to camera. It has been revived in transitional
democracies where new parties are unlikely to have either the funds or
expertise to produce their own broadcasts.
