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Zurich 20th April, 2010. Last week´s television debate has finally given Liberal Democrats leader Clegg a jump in media visibility and, as reported by Mail on Sunday (18/4) leadership in the polls. Media Tenor´s ongoing analysis to UK politics suggests that if the Liberal Democrat can continue to maintain the volume, then they have all the pieces in place to force a significant result at the ballet box.
Prior to the television debate the UK election was shaping to be a simple two party race in UK television. Labour and the Tories shared close to 90% of the UK political agenda and the Liberal Democrats only 4%. However, the response to Clegg´s performance in the television debate has changed the scene. Media content analysis data up to and including 18th April show that Clegg´s weekly volume has now risen to equal Cameron and has overtaken Brown. “We know from monitoring electoral coverage international over the past 15 years that volume is everything in political coverage.” says Roland Schatz, founder and CEO of Media Tenor international. “Nader showed it in the US – it does not matter how good (or bad) your platform is, if the volume is not there, people will simply not risk voting for you. That was the Liberal Democrat´s problem but the situation has now changed with the good television performance of Clegg.”
The study on UK political coverage in the six months prior to the election shows that the Liberal Democrat´s position has always been quite favorable in terms of tonality and topic spread. They have shown consistently better media ratings than the Tories, especially in economic and internal issues. They mainly avoided the critical topics such as banks or Iraq. Crucially they have not had the historical baggage, such as of the “nasty party” tag which plagued the early part of the Tories campaign, or the presence of Tony Blair, which marred Brown´s earlier campaign. As Schatz puts it, “The Liberal Democrats have always had everything in place in terms of tonality, except that they were under the awareness threshold - until now”.
The most encouraging topic result for the Liberal Democrats is the fact that the media is reporting their lead in the polls. Schatz points out that the simple message that a party is ahead, or catching up in the polls can have a snowball effect in close run elections. “When people are in doubt, they will often just back the winner – or at least the person who the media says is most likely to win” says Schatz. For Gordon Brown, reporting that the Liberal Democrats are doing well in the polls is an especially serious setback because in recent weeks he had started to benefit from this agenda.
The presence of leaders has also led to some interesting results in Media Tenor´s in depth analysis of all statements referring to British politicians in UK nightly news. The most significant is Tony Blair´s presence. From October 1 to April 10 Blair occupied over 24.9% of political reporting, Cameron 22.2%, Clegg 3% and Brown 49.9%. Blair´s move off the agenda saw Brown´s media recovery: he moved from a catastrophic -60% in January to an acceptable -15% in April and a corresponding to a 5% improvement in his average polling approval in the same period. As Schatz points out, “-15% ratings for a politician is still competitive as it shows there is the ability to fend of negativity. This was not the case in January.” Cameron´s media rating has swung between overall neutral and 5% positive. Clegg´s consistently good ratings would have seen him win a landslide - but the volume was far too low.
A worrying trend in the early part of the election build up was the similarity of minor party strategy similar trends to the extremist political messages of far right groups in France and Switzerland. Controversy has proven to be the most successful means of minor parties to get above the awareness threshold. Results for the BNP ad UKIP show that there is limited space for such parties to discuss mainstream topics. Instead, tried and trusted controversial issues such as immigration, the EU, or just simply promoting controversy, have served to some extent. “While volumes of these controversial parties may seem harmless on the political arena, we have recently seen in France and Switzerland how quickly racism and bigotry can lead to reputational damage,” says Schatz, “the UK media needs to be careful of its framing of such parties to avoid being exploited”.

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