Anyone else find it interesting that all the political debates thus far have been exclusively on Cable?
So far, all of the Republican debates have been aired live, but only on cable networks. Fox News, CNN, Fox News, now MSNBC. I find it curious that in the department of politics, a topic that will eventually have an effect on every American living in the country (and probably a few living outside of the country, to say nothing of legal/illegal aliens in the country and anyone else who has any interest in the United States) isn't being broadcast in a medium that is accessible to all Americans for free?
Yes, it's early in the political season, and it makes some sense that only political junkies are interested in this, thus I doubt it would pull the ratings of The X Factor, or Parks and Rec, but we live in 2011. There is no reason that such a thing couldn't be made available on a digital sub-channel (the local NBC affiliate, KARE, runs 24/7 weather on their sub-channel, though I do know that some NBC affiliates carry Universal Sports, so that could potentially be a problem).
The issue only gets worse if you aren't near a TV. To the best of my knowledge, there will be no terrestrial radio broadcast of the debate either, meaning that the only way to listen if you're not near a TV with cable is a satellite radio.
If you own neither of those, there's the option to live-stream the video via Politico, but that still requires you to have a computer (or a Flash-enabled smartphone), and an Internet connection.
