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CNN: Time to retire the inane "best political team on television" phrase

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Worst Practices  |  Advertising

I'm enjoying the US Presidential race. As a marketer, it is fascinating to see how the candidates position themselves. And as a frequent keynote speaker at conferences, I also enjoy the snippets of candidates speaking on the stump.

Each primary night, I channel surf for hours as the returns come in.

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Is it just me, or is CNN's slogan: "The best political team on television" incredibly annoying? I was watching CNN recently for about twenty minutes and I heard Wolf Blitzer utter the inane phrase three times. So I clicked over to MSNBC because it pissed me off so much. A bit later I came back to CNN and he said it again. Yikes! What’s up with that?

A search of CNN transcripts on Dow Jones Factiva reveals that the phrase has been used on air about 200 times in the past 30 days and 16 times on Super Tuesday alone.

A phrase like "The best political team on television" might be OK as an advertising slogan for billboards and magazine ads, because you want people to give CNN a try. But it is incredibly silly for the anchorman to keep saying it on air during the editorial content of a program - we are already watching!

There is no need to coerce viewers into continuing to watch your coverage. Anyone who is into politics enough to watch primary results instead of American Idol or ESPN or something else on TV has already made up their minds about what channels to watch and who has the best coverage. Don't interrupt our enjoyment with advertising in the form of silly catch phrases during the editorial content.

I'll be watching the Wisconsin and Hawaii primary results this evening.

Attention Wolf Blitzer and CNN: It's time to retire that stupid phrase.