http://www.adweek.com/news/press/programming-politicos-future-video-140071
Last January in Iowa, Politico’s tireless Mike Allen sequestered himself under fluorescent lights in a room with a laptop and his omnipresent BlackBerry and talked for well over five hours as Caucus results trickled in. There was no music, just raw politics. Believe it or not, this is pretty much exactly what makes PoliticoLive’s broadcasts work.
Since Allen’s first run, Politico Live has come a long way, adding garnishes of production value and beefing up its on-camera presence with embedded Politico reporters. The result is an obsessive, wonky and intelligent broadcast that is much like its print and Web counterparts. One possible hint about its ambitions was a recent job posting for an executive producer with extensive live TV experience. With a niche to fill, Politico, which was founded in 2007 as a disruptive voice for Beltway journalism, might be poised for its second act: a robust video presence that could give cable news a reason to worry.
The broadcast has increased in scale and quality and has an agreement to broadcast livestreams on C-SPAN, but the barriers to cable entry are many. According to comScore figures for March, Politico had 168,000 unique video viewers while at the other end of the spectrum, MSNBC.com boasted more than 18 million. The comparison is an uneven one, but there’s no question: A focused site like Politico has a long way to go.