PREACHING TO THEIR CHOIRS:

Campaigns Use TV Preferences to Find Voters: Patterns in TV advertising shed new light on where the Bush and Kerry campaigns see the most opportunity. (JIM RUTENBERG, 7/18/04, NY Times)

When deciding where to run his television advertisements, President Bush is much more partial than Senator John Kerry to crime shows like "Cops," "Law & Order" and "JAG." Mr. Kerry leans more to lighter fare, like "Judge Judy," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "Late Show with David Letterman."

Those choices do not reflect either man's taste in television, but critical differences in the advertising strategies of their campaigns, which are spending more money for commercials than any other campaigns in presidential history.

Crime shows appeal to the Bush campaign because of its interest in reaching out to Republican men who are attracted to such programming. By contrast, the Kerry campaign is more interested in concentrating on single women, who tend to be drawn to shows with softer themes.

The party of men vs. the party of women.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 18, 2004 11:18 AM